Crazy Stupid…Avengers?!

I’ve been told, though I never really thought about it much, that Hollywood movies typically follow a standard three act formula.  But then I noticed something odd.  The current big summer blockbusting movie, Marvel’s The Avengers shares the same plot structure as last year’s romantic comedy Crazy Stupid Love.  (I’m married, I see the occasional romantic comedy.  Also, yes, that is the full title of the Avengers movie.  Probably to keep people from looking for Emma Peel.)

In act one, an event occurs.  The protagonists were happy, or at least complacent, doing whatever they normally do in their day-to-day lives – taking their wives out to dinner, solving the energy crisis, interrogating arms dealers, whatever.  But the event changes everything, tilts the world off its comfortable center, and at first no one knows how to respond.  The Avengers starts with action, gunfire, and very expensive special effects.  In Crazy Stupid Love, the catalytic event is a simple sentence: “I want a divorce.”

In act two, the characters get off to a rocky start dealing with whatever has shaken their world.  In the RomCom, Cal, played by Steve Carell, tries to reinvent himself as a swinging single guy.  In a nice counterpoint, the guy who coaches Cal on being single gets caught off guard by a potential long-term relationship and has to reinvent himself to deal with that.  In The Avengers, the heroes are called together but fail to reach their potential as a team. 

The important thing about act two is that the world has changed but the characters haven’t caught up.  Cal still has the mindset of a married man.  The would-be Avengers are still used to functioning as individuals.  As act two draws to a close, things get worse.  Cal’s early dating mistakes come back to haunt him and the super-heroes almost tear themselves apart with only the smallest effort on the part of the villains.

Act three turns it all around.  I don’t want to spoil either movie any more than I already have, but let me say this:  Act three is when the characters decide what they really value, who they really want to be, and what they are willing to do about it.  Armed with this newfound purpose, they go out and face the adversity created in act one.  Only this time, the audience knows that they have at least the potential to triumph.  Instead of feeling sorry for them or shaking our heads, now we are rooting for them.

There is also an epilogue, a dénouement, a bit at the end, which affirms the protagonist’s new position in the world and underscores his (or their) triumph.  Cal gives a graduation speech.  The Avengers get news coverage.

So a couple of points for all you writers out there.  First, I’m not accusing either film of being trite or formulaic.  The fact is, each movie is a fine example of its genre.  What is interesting is that the formula is genre independent.  It isn’t the only formula, or the only way to tell a tale, but give it its due – it works. 

And there’s nothing wrong with that.  There is a temptation to recoil at the concept of formula.  Formula, you might think, is the opposite of originality.  But if anything, the sheer astronomical differences between my two example films should illustrate how much room for creativity the formula allows.

It is also worth noting that, if done correctly, the act three protagonist is a different (and typically a better) person than he (or they) were in act one.

And finally, because this has been a long post, consider the formula as a tool.  Can you break your plot into acts?  Can you see where your protagonist is and how he our she is changing in each act?

As an experiment, I decided to break down the last movie I saw into a few simple sentences, trying to lay bare the structure.  It looked something like this:

One:  A group of college girls decide to pursue loser boyfriends.

Two:  The girls experience disappointment and heartbreak because their boyfriends are losers.

Three:  The girls send their boyfriends soap.

Epilogue:  Life is a musical.

Perhaps I need to try a different movie…

Something Everybody Wants

In my last installment, we considered a plot structure in which a character desires more than one thing, seeks more than one goal.  It’s a handy trick that not only provides character depth, but also almost guarantees conflict.

It occurred to me later that it might be worth looking at the trick in reverse – what happens when multiple characters all want the same thing?  The potential for conflict is obvious…

There’s a classic American comedy film directed by Stanley Kramer called It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.  The movie revolves around about a dozen characters who are all given a hint as to the hidden location of $350,000 in stolen cash.  (It’s a 1963 movie – that was a lot of money back then.) Do the characters cooperate and agree to split the money?  Of course not.

When everybody wants something at the expense of someone else, conflict is inevitable.  The prize doesn’t have to be cash – it can be love, recognition, a scholarship, a place in the sun. The point is, our hero isn’t the only one striving for the prize. The question becomes not just what does your character want, but what will he or she be willing to compete for?  And how  far will he or she go to get it?

The rule of this type of story is this – only one wins the prize.  You can’t split a gold medal and your audience will feel cheated if you try.

But if we, as writers, can make our readers care about more than one of the characters seeking the goal, if we can make it uncertain who is going to finally win, if we can sympathize with the losers as well as the victors – well, that sounds like a darn good story to me.

Everybody Wants Something.

There is a classic bit of writer's advice you will probably run into if you spend any amount of time looking for that sort of advice -- the story starts with somebody wanting something.

It can be anything, as long as somebody seriously wants it. It can be as simple as a desire to restore honor to the family name or as terrifying and difficult as trying to impress a pretty girl.

It's a basic recipe. The character's desires help define the character. The character's actions to achieve the desire move the plot along. The obstacles to that desire create conflict. Overcoming conflict provides resolution. Character + Conflict + Resolution = Story.

I was recently reminded of an interesting variation on the recipe. I was watching Joss Whedon's short musical Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. It's a nicely structured little story. But it starts with a clever twist to the recipe above. It starts with a character who wants two somethings.

This simple variation opens up a wealth of possibilities. The two desires can conflict, to start with. Maybe coming closer to one goal moves the other further away. Or maybe a great opportunity to achieve the second goal arrives right in the middle of delicately timed preparations for the first goal. These conflicts force the character to constantly choose which desire to pursue. It becomes a much greater task to achieve both.

This variation also makes the outcome less predictable. The most common resolution of the classic recipe is that the character gets what he or she wants. But when the character wants more than one thing, then our hero can both win and lose. Or both goals can be achieved. Or the resolution can ultimately turn on the making of a choice as the protagonist learns what he or she really needs.

It can be argued that almost all fiction writing is formulaic. Who cares, as long as the story is good? And writers will keep playing with the formula. What comes to your mind if I say the character wants five things? That's a good start on a nested quest -- kill the ogre to get the magic sword to face the dragon to rescue the princess to save the kingdom... But it would also make a good farce. The guy who inherits a million if he gets married before the end of the month but he is juggling five girlfriends, none of which will marry him if they find out about the other women in his life...

So, you want to start a story? Tell me what your character wants.

Setting, Situation, Scene… Part Three – The Conclusion

Once, as a child, I read a very forgettable book with a memorable bit in it. I don’t remember the book at all, but I remember this: one of the child heroes (it was a kid’s book, after all) was in the middle of a Lassie movie when the call to action came. When he whined about missing the end of his movies, one of his friends pointed out that we all knew how it ended. Lassie saves the day.

Yeah, the first kid replies, but I wanted to see how.

In my previous two posts, I pulled together the elements of a story. We have an interesting setting, some character interaction, an intriguing situation, and even some nice conflict.

Will our heroes risk their jobs and possibly even their position in time and space in order to expose their employer’s dangerous experiments? And how will the odd, one-sided romance angle play out?

If you think about it, gentle reader, you probably already know the answers to those questions. I mean, it’s not like you haven’t been exposed to stories before. Of course our heroes will pursue both the dangerous truth and the romance. Wouldn’t be much of a story if they didn’t.

But, if I write it all up well, hopefully you will want to stick around to see how they reach those answers.  To be a story, to be a good and satisfying story, beguiling the reader or viewer or audience with all the fun bits isn’t enough. It’s just a start.

But the story has to resolve. To reach a conclusion. To reach a good conclusion consistent with and worthy of what has gone before. And your audience has to care enough to follow you there.

And if I knew all the secrets to making that happen I’d be rich and famous. But I tell you this: it can be done.

The Two Deaths of Andrew Dolbeck

There are two types of character death in fiction. (No, actually there are probably thousands. But there is a division of two that I would like to discuss. And while we are being parenthetical, today’s writing lesson can apply to more than death – feel free to substitute any dramatic plot event.) Let us call them the story-driven death and the reality emulating death.

The story-driven death suits the story. No surprise there. The deadly event occurs at just the right point in the plot, it fits the themes of the work, it advances the progression of the surviving characters.

There are many classic examples – the person who has done wrong, seeking redemption, dies saving the lives of others. Or, for a twist, the pure and good hero dies saving the person who has done wrong, adding value to their redemption quest. And let us not forget the mentor figure who dies in the middle of the classic Hero’s Journey. Or the passing of the sword from one generation to the next. In horror movies, the character that invents or unleashes the evil force is typically on the to-be-killed list.

You’ve seen these stories before – you know the drill.  And that’s part of the problem. Story-driven deaths can be effective and moving, but they can also be predictable.

I personally favor action genres, with cops and detectives and space pilots and characters who, for no reason, wear bright spandex costumes while fighting crime. These characters operate in dangerous worlds. In such worlds, death should strike unexpectedly. It should not be predictable.

Which brings us to the reality emulating death. The argument here is simple: people die. In real life, no one dies to suit the plot. Death occurs on its own time. 

There are benefits to having this kind of death in your story. In most fiction, a certain degree of willing suspension of disbelief is required. Having people dodge bullets all day without consequence doesn’t exactly make that suspension any easier.

The reality emulating death also makes a statement about hazardous environments. In war people die. People die unfairly and unexpectedly in space, in unsanitary conditions, and in the bad part of town.

And once a well loved character dies unexpectedly, outside what we believe to be the rhythm and structure of the plot, all bets are off. No one is safe. Anything can happen.  And that’s a fun place for the author to have the reader.

On the other hand, we don’t always want our fictions to be as haphazard and meaningless as our real lives. Character deaths that do not sync with the story may seem arbitrary and forced. Or, depending on the story, too harsh.

Of course, every reader will have a different opinion. In the end, as always, you need to weigh carefully what suits your story.

Because your readers certainly will.

Points of Interest

The hero of your story has just arrived at a remote village.  The village serves some plot function – maybe it is a place for the hero to rest and recover, or learn something, or maybe it needs to be defended against hordes of killer penguins.

But aside from its plot function, it’s really just a village.

How to we make it something more?  The key here is providing points of interest to our audience.  Something to make the place real, to make the people of the village come alive.

First, there are the minor details that add up.  Does the village have interesting street names? Does it grow crops, raise horses, sell the best  household waste disposal robots in fifty parsecs?  Then there are the living details – maybe there’s a funeral going on when our hero arrives.  Or a romance going on between the farmer’s son and the blacksmith’s daughter.

What does any of this have to do with the advancement of the plot?  Absolutely nothing.  Which means there is a danger of spending too much time and attention on it.  But without something, the village is boring.

And authors never want to be boring.

Besides, some side detail may grow into something important.  These happy moments happen in writing.  It’s part of the creative process.  The blacksmith’s daughter may remind our hero of something important.  Or maybe the best household waste disposal robots in fifty parsecs are just what we need to deal with those pesky penguins.

A Matter of Character

A writing friend of mine recently mentioned the old idea that the difference between story and plot is character.  Really, of course, it’s a matter of how the terms are defined – ask ten writers, you’ll probably get twelve definitions.

But the underlying point is valid.  I recently saw a good example in Disney’s latest princess movie, Tangled.

Without giving too much away, there is a scene where the lead character is emotionally conflicted.  She is happy about something she’s done, but unhappy about how she had to do it.

There is an entire scene devoted to her emotional conflict that does not advance the plot – that is, the sequence of events leading to the resolution of the story – at all.  Just the opposite, actually – the presence of this extra scene slows the advancement of events.

But it is a great scene.  It’s funny.  And it tells us about our princess and helps us care about her.  And it is by caring about her that we give a damn about the story.  ‘Cause otherwise it is just a sequence of events.

So I guess the best plot is the world falls short if it doesn’t happen to someone.  To look at it another way, perhaps a great sequence of events that don’t involve the audience with the characters should be called something other than a story.  Like a history, or a saga, or something.

Where do I even begin…?

Nothing is more daunting to a writer than a blank page. But before you start writing, you need to know what you want to write about. So I was thinking about how I conceptualize my stories.

Most of the time I work in this order: character, setting, plot, theme. I should mention, however, that these are not entirely discrete units. The act of creation is actually very messy.

I start with character because it provides the most points of interest to me. Character, as I think of it, implies a lot of the other points. If I contemplate a dragonslayer who wants to retire and become a ballerina, for example, what does that tell me about setting, plot, and theme?

Well, to start with, we have a setting that has both dragons and ballet. Dragon stories are often set in medieval times, but ballet began sometime in the Renaissance, giving me some interesting dissonance to work with.

For plot, I immediately begin looking for conflicts to my characters stated goal. What are the impediments to retiring from a dangerous and necessary job? What are the challenges in convincing people to accept someone as a dancer?

I usually discover thematic elements as I work. It feels a little like uncovering what was already there. In this case, I suspect I’d be exploring questions of identity and the freedom to choose what to do with one’s life.  Possibly contrast the values of violence and art and parallel the discipline required to do either well.

Your mileage may vary. Perhaps contemplating what the world of dance might be like in a setting with dragons would be your starting inspiration. Or perhaps you have a theme you want to explore.

Writing, like most arts, is judged on the finished product, rather than the process. So whatever works to start your story.  Just be sure you do actually start.

Taming Ideas

I’ve been to a lot of writing conventions and read a number of books on writing. One question that always seems to come up eventually is – Where do you get your ideas?

And usually the answer is a bit sarcastic. Writers claim to get their ideas from inside cereal boxes or from a certain post office box in Schenectady. The reason for the sarcasm is because it’s the wrong question. (And, I suspect, because there isn’t an answer. Does anyone really know how our minds work?)

The right question, they’ll happily tell you, is what do you do with your ideas? The work comes in taking an idea and turning it into a story.

I have lots of ideas. Everyone does. I may have ideas about water-breathing people helping clean up a flooded city, or two clever librarians meeting and falling in love, or a quaint little post-apocalyptic coffee shop – but what do I need to sell any of these ideas to a reader?

I need these ideas, and the world’s they suggest, to to be explored by characters. Good characters with motivations and conflicts. And there should probably be a plot or two involving the characters dealing with the conflicts.

Think of a fictional character that you like. Captain Kirk, Indiana Jones, Sam Seaborn, Superman, George Smiley, Gregory House, Captain Ahab, King Lear, The Little Mermaid, Gilgamesh, Silver John, Doc Savage, anybody. You could easily write an interesting paragraph, maybe two, describing the qualities of your chosen character.

But I doubt anyone who read that paragraph would ask for more. We remember these heroes because of their stories. So I guess the real question is: How do you craft your stories?

And that, at least, we can discuss sensibly.

Story and Structure, Part Three

‘Cause there had to be three, right? Powerful number, three.

I had a few more thoughts about the Rule of Three since my last post. One obvious and easy-to-use pattern is to have the first two things be not quite what is needed. This is too hard, this is too soft. The third, as Goldilocks will tell you, is just right.

Three is also the minimum number you can have to establish a group and an outsider. How many fairy tale princes have two older brothers? And poor Cinderella, with her two wicked step-sisters.

I’d like to wrap this series up by swinging back around to story structure. Let’s see if I can do it in three parts.

ONE: Introduce, at a minimum, a character and a goal to be achieved or a problem to overcome. Even better if you can provide a setting as well.  Little Red needs to get to Granny’s house, but the path leads through the dark and dangerous woods.

TWO: The conflict must be dealt with. The woods must be entered. This is a good place to insert the Rule of Three. The soldier on the road is given a magic bag, a seeing glass, and a violin, each of which will be necessary to escape the ogre.

THREE: Resolve the conflict. Using the Rule of Three keeps the resolution from being too simple (and hopefully from being too complex as well). After dancing each night with the Prince in her three gowns – one silver like the moon, one blue as the night sky, and one gold as the sun – the Orphan Princess finds true love.

And that’s the sort of thing I thought about when I needed to craft a tale on the fly.

Story and Structure, Part Two

Once, back in the ancient days, there was a poor cobbler’s son, who wanted nothing so much in all the world as to marry the baker’s daughter and live a quiet life.

Still talking about the tricks I used in creating a satisfying story on the fly. Today I want to talk about stylistic language, the Rule of Three, and story structure.

Stylistic language is just setting and keeping a tone of voice that suits the tale. One of my personal rules when I was performing as a storyteller was never start with “Once Upon a Time.” To me, that phrase is reserved for either (a) working with very small children, or (b) making fun of fairy tales and parodying them.

So at the very beginning of the story, I had to make a decision that helped set the tone of voice. And I kept a number of stock beginning phrases available to select from.

The other interesting thing in the example above is that contains a lot of compressed information. A good rule in performing is to say what you need to say and then shut up. My intro above  introduces in one sentence a setting reference (back in ancient days/fairy tale), a hero (poor cobbler’s son,) and the goal that must be met for the story to end happily (marry the baker’s daughter). 

Important side note: The goal can change if the character grows and changes. The story can end happily if he learns that the baker’s daughter is not really for him and he marries someone else. But it’s easier to simply meet the conditions set at the beginning.

So in order to hang a story on these bare bones, the hero needs to overcome an obstacle between him and his goal.

And this is where the Rule of Three comes in. Three is a measure of complexity. One is simple and unsatisfying. So he asked for her hand in marriage and she said yes. End of story. Yawn. Two is not quite enough to clearly establish a pattern. Four is more than we need.

So the hero must do three things. Or maybe one complex thing with the help of three friends or allies. Or three kindnesses he does to strangers along the way get him the three tools he needs to succeed.

Story and Structure, Part One

I used to do this trick where I’d tell a story, totally impromptu, making it up as I go along. I’d do this performing to a live audience. The general consensus from the feedback I got is that, over time, I got fairly good at it. I haven’t tried it in years, mind, so I don’t know if I still have the knack.

But I’ve been thinking recently about how I did it. I relied on a number of tricks – stylistic language, the rule of three, creative repetition, and a basic, even formulaic, idea of story structure.

I’m going to start with that last one first, because it is actually the most important one for writing. The others are mostly embellishments, so we’ll get to them later.

Usually, in impromptu work, the performer is given a topic or challenge. This does two things: first, it keeps the performer from just telling some already memorized work and second, it gives the performer a starting point. I tended to work from three things, often a character, a place, and an item, which I asked the audience to provide.

So, basic story structure: We start with a hero (character) in an established situation (place) who has something that he or she needs to do (perhaps acquiring or delivering an item). The necessary conflict is generated when doing the necessary thing doesn’t turn out to be easy.

The story is resolved when the hero succeeds. How satisfying the story is depends on how cleverly and how easily the character succeeds.

And that’s where the rule of three comes in, which I’ll explain next time.

Back in the Saddle Again

I am seriously rewriting the second half of my script. While I successfully reached both my 100 page goal and the end of my story within April, I have found a significant problem in my story.

The quest has no stakes.

I’ve set up that my hero, Jon Warder, is going on what may well be a fool’s quest as a point of honor, because there is nothing else he can do for the people for whom he feels responsible. I like that. It’s nifty.

But if he should fail in his quest? Nothing changes.  And if he should succeed? Well, he does succeed, of course, and it turns out to be very important, but at the time he takes the quest, we don’t know why it’s important. For most of the movie, it looks like if he succeeds, nothing changes.

So why should the audience care if he fails?

When laying out plots, nothing changes is the kiss of death.

I have two options. I can invest the viewer more in Jon’s honor, showing that he takes some great, personal, internal loss if he fails. Or I can establish real, physical consequences to the quest. They already exist, I just have to find a way to share them with the audience sooner.

Ideally, I should do both of these things.

The problem is that I did a good job tying the story together. One scene logically follows the next. There is pacing and flow. So I’m going to have to break it before I can fix it.

That’s the way it goes sometimes.

Location, Location, Location

I like to have some sense where I’m going when I write but I also like to be open to discovery.  So I tend to have more general outlines than detailed ones. I did a preliminary outline the other day, but because I’m working on a movie instead of a play script, an interesting thing happened.

Instead of breaking down by plot points or significant events, the outline fell into place by locations.  I now have three major sections of the film, which take place in increasingly large and fanciful places.

My outline is far from complete, but it gives me some of the questions that I will need to answer.  In rough form, it looks something like this:

1. I. THE VILLAGE
   A. Jon and Bard (Darrion?) in tavern
   B. Beastmen come to the Village, looking for the McGuffin, which Jon once had
   C. Fight against the beastmen
   D. Jon needs to go to the City, Darrion invites himself along
        a. Why does Jon go the City?  He had the McGuffin, but he left it in the City.
        b. If he leaves the Village, hopefully the beastmen will follow, leaving the village safe
        c. I think Darrion just goes along for the adventure
2. II. THE CITY
   A. Challenge entering the City – meet the surly guy (Bear?) – the “Little John” scene
   B. Meet the dwarves.  (Why dwarves? could and probably will be a whole ‘nother blog)
         a. Background info on the McGuffin, Jon’s past
          b. Need to take the McGuffin to the dwarven hold of Citadel Stone
   C. Challenge leaving the City – why is it hard to leave? 
   D. With the help of Bear and Tatters, escape the city (Tatters brought in for this purpose?)
3. III.  CITADEL STONE
       I have only vague ideas what happens here, but I can picture the set...

Note that I have inserted challenges/conflicts at certain points, even though I don’t yet know what exactly they are. There is a danger here that my challenges will feel contrived because, well, they are. I will need to tie them in to the ongoing plot or be willing to drop them. 

The beastmen, by the way, let me have orcs without having orcs.  In a D&D game they could be gnolls, bugbears, overly hairy hobgoblins, or other things.  But having them furry and animalistic is a good visual and keeps them from looking like anything in either the Lord of the Rings or previous D&D movies. And of course, the McGuffin will not be called that.

 

Note: Next Thursday is the first day of Norwescon, our largest local SF convention, so there might not be a blog for that day.

Secrets and Lies

Stories often feature surprises -- unforeseen events, betrayals, characters who are not what they seem... At the very basic level, there are two types of surprises: things that catch the story's characters off-guard and things that actually surprise the reader. There is also a bit of a sliding scale, from things that are foreshadowed so that someone who is paying attention will be less surprised to events that are so out of left-field that no one sees them coming.

How you chose to handle such things changes the flavor of your story and even, possibly, the world in which it is set. A few examples...

In The Lord of the Rings the point is made that a servant of the enemy might appear fair, but would somehow feel foul. Grima Wormtounge may have seduced the ear of Theodan, but his evil is not in question to the reader (or many in Theodan's court, for that matter). But then Middle-Earth is the sort of place where good and evil are almost tangible forces. It's the sort of world where the armies of darkness are defeated at dawn, as if the sun itself rose to oppose them. So while a character may be briefly deceived, the attentive reader rarely is.

In Shakespeare's Othello, on the other hand, Iago appears perfectly trustworthy and upright -- as long as Othello is in the room. But in Shakespeare, one of the theatrical devices is that characters reveal their inner thoughts in solliloquies and in speeches to their allies and accomplices. This convention allows Shakespeare to show Iago's villainy clearly to the audience without him having to ooze slime blatantly when lying to the Moor.

In modern stories, a betraying character often gives no more clue to the reader than they do to the protaganist. The writer, while hopefully playing fair, wants to take the reader off-guard when the coat turns. This style portrays a world that is more realistic (relatively speaking) and dangerous, compared to worlds where the forces of darkness always feel foul.

Interesting how what is essentially a plotting and presentation decision changes the feel of the setting, isn't it?

And a quick teaser before I take my leave: I'm planning to do something a little different with this blog in April. After all, I wouldn't want things to get dull. Stay tuned for more details.

Characters Die

Death is one of those inevitable facts of life. If no one ever died in novels or movies or anything, it would seem unreal. Authors are assassins and gods, making that awesome, terrible choice of who lives and who dies. In my experience, character death in stories falls into two broad camps.

The first is the death that is necessary. For whatever reason, the plot or theme of the piece requires it. The death of Bruce Wayne's parents is central to the whole mythology surrounding Batman. In the classic heroic quest pattern Joseph Campbell calls the Hero's Journey, the mentor figure must die (or, at least, be abruptly removed from the hero's life). Otherwise, the mentor, being wiser and more skilled, would resolve the quest himself and the hero would not be challenged.

The other type of death is the type that just happens. Because death happens. Because if you live long enough, someone you know will die. This is a little harder to do in fiction, where we know that all the pieces have been put into place by an author. We have the understanding that every event in the story is a deliberate choice.

But just because the death is not a necessary event in terms of the plot (i.e., the story would have advanced just fine without it) doesn't mean it has no impact. Perhaps it illustrates the danger of a situation. Some situations (war comes to mind) are never entered into without cost and would not be believable if no price were paid.

In a gentler example, follow a protagonist through enough of his or her life, and the loss of a parent or loved one is an experience that should just naturally occur. Just as, over time, weddings and job interviews and love scenes will occur. These common but significant experiences give our lives a certain weight.

In stories, unlike life, death is just another thing. Just another possibility in the author's magic bag of tricks. But like everything in that terrible, wonderful bag, the author should reflect on how and why to use it.

Easy as A, B...

There's a common plotting trick, called the A Plot and the B Plot. I first heard of in reference to episodic television, but it can work as well any media. The basic idea is to have two running plots in the same setting and period of time.

The first plot, designated A, is in the forefront, involving major action and lead characters. The other plot, plot B, often involves peripheral characters and is likely less significant to the overall story.

I would argue that the overall work is stronger if the running plots are somehow related. I've seen shows were it felt like the two plots weren't even from the same writer -- and given the production schedules of weekly television, I suppose that's entirely possible. I can see at least three obvious degrees of interaction. From strongest to weakest, they are:

Connected
The two plots are connected, either in their action or thematically. The solution of one plot's conflict may contribute to (or even further complicate) the ultimate resolution of the other. (And generally, the A plot, being larger and more important, is resolved last.) Even a thematic link makes the overall story stronger.

Disconnected
The two plots have nothing to do with each other. This can still work, but it creates more of a balancing issue to make sure one plot doesn't completely outweigh the other. On the plus side you can cover more bases, maybe an action or mystery plot on one hand and a drama or comedy on the other.

Missed Connection
This one is bad and I've seen it happen. In this sad scenario, there is an obvious way that the plots should interact, but they don't. The characters involved in plot B find evidence that the hero of plot A needs, for example, to resolve a mystery. But even though the characters meet and discuss their respective plots, the plot B folks never bother to mention that they can solve plot A. This is, of course, frustrating to the reader/viewer/audience.

Things to consider when plotting your next work.

The...ahem...Sex Scene

Any element of a story - from description to character to plot -- is essentially a point of information. The job of the author is to control the flow of information to the reader. Each scene is constructed to convey important data in an interesting way. Scenes that do not are probably not helping your story any.

So, the love scene... In a very, very broad, general sense, there are two types of information to be covered here. The first is binary: do they do it? yes/no. Are the people in question, in fact, lovers? yes/no. This is essentially a character point. The second datum is how do they do it? In other words, how much detail does the reader get?

The first point, the binary one, is fairly easy and also usually fairly significant. We can clearly establish that our heroes are about to do (or have just done) the deed, with all the action taking place discretely off camera. You knock on the door and someone who doesn't live there answers, wrapped in a bed sheet.

It is also possible to be intentionally unclear on this particular point, if that's what serves the story. Easier, I think, on stage or screen, where the characters involved simply exit the scene together with nothing implied either way about what happens next. But generally, the viewers want the character point. Are they or aren't they?

The second option presents much more of a decision for the writer. How much to show? A sex scene, like any other, can convey important plot and character points. It's a great place for a character to say the wrong thing, for example, or to show the reader just how well (or poorly) aligned the desires and interests of the characters are.

But all that is just whipped topping. I said above that every scene should convey important and interesting information. Sometimes the interesting outweighs the important. So maybe your sex scene doesn't exactly advance the plot. It's a sex scene! You wouldn't pay money for a kung fu movie and not expect to see some martial arts. You wouldn't pick up a romantic comedy and be surprised that it contained kissing.

Oddly enough, in the US at least, its more acceptable to admit liking a good exciting portrayal of violence than it is to admit enjoying a depiction of sex, but you know, we're all human here. A sex scene can exist primarily for its own inherent entertainment value.

Is that something you want to do in your book? Is that something you want to do with your characters -- and will it change how the reader thinks about them? It's another line item on the list of things the author needs to think about. It's a rather long list, I'm afraid.