Category: black

This week is one of those things I talk about a lot, but I don’t think I’ve really, y’know, talked about it in a while now. Possibly a long while. So I figured, hey, nobody’s made a request, why don’t I update something so I’m not always linking back to ten year old blog posts…

Also, heads up, just to keep things easy, for this post I’m going to be referring to our assembled manuscript as a book or the book or your/my book. I’m going to be talking about story a lot, and I don’t want to cause any confusion between a story (the thing we wrote) and story (the literary device we’ll be talking about). Make sense?

Anyway, let’s talk about plot and story, shall we?

I’m a big believer that the vast majority of good books, movies, television episodes, comic books, short stories—any tale we want to tell, in whatever format we want to tell it in—has two major parts. These are plot and story. Our plot is the events and moments going on outside my characters. Our story is all the events and moments that are going on inside my characters.

(There’s also theme, which is sort of where these two thing interact, but that’s a little bigger and tougher and gives some people scary flashbacks to high school English class, so I’m just going to skip it for now. If you want to read a little bit about theme, I talked about it a while back during the A2Q. But for now—just plot and story)

Also worth noting depending on who your literary professors/ favorite writing coaches are, you may have heard different names for these. Maybe Russian ones or something. If you want to use those that’s fine. We’re talking about art, everyone has their own way of talking about it. If you care, I first heard this put this way many years back when I got to talk with screenwriter/ director Shane Black, and that’s when it really clicked for me, and that’s how I usually explain it.

So when we’re talking about plot and story, plot is everything going on outside of my character. All the external events, challenges, obstacles, and goals in my book. Just to be clear, something that’s ended up inside my body –a brain-control chip, a virus, a bomb where my left lung is supposed to be, a little space worm that crawled into my ear—is still an external threat. External means outside of my characters as people, not as skinbags filled with bone and muscle

An easy way to think of plot is it’s almost always about something my character wants, and they’re trying to do something to get that thing. That may sound kind of huge and vague because, well, it is. My characters could want any number or type of things, and there could be any number/type of things between them. Save Uncle Ricky’s Surf Shop. Ask Wakko out on a date. Stop the invading demons from Otherworld. Throw the best darned Christmas show this town’s ever seen and save our little theater! Or maybe even just getting home.

Also, make note of that bit I just mentioned. Trying to do something. Plot tends to be active. It’s my characters to achieve a goal. If they’re not doing anything (or anything challenging) it’s probably not plot.

Which brings us to story, which is the flipside of plot. Story is all my character’s internal desires and doubts and needs and struggles. It’s what motivates them and what they need to overcome if they don’t want to get left behind (or trampled) by the plot. You may have seen something here or there about how there’s really only seven plots (or six or nine or whatever). There is a small bit of truth to that. But the reason there are millions of different books is because of story. If I drop two different characters into the same situation, I’m going to get different results, because they’re going to approach things… well, differently. If Steve Rogers gets the super soldier formula, things go one way. If Peggy Carter gets it, they go a different way. To quote Javier Grillo-Marxuach (who’s made, like, half the sci-fi/ fantasy shows you’ve loved in the past decade) —“Plot gets you into a scene, character gets you out.”

And this is because characters aren’t all going to do the same thing in a given situation. Who they are affects how they react to different obstacles and how they choose to overcome them (or maybe just avoid them). Uncle Ricky may have just given up, but Yakko would try to save the Surf Shop by taking out a second mortgage (despite the horrible interest rates), Wakko might hold a bikini car wash, and Dot may finally try to find the lost treasure of that old pirate captain, Jacques Le Maudit.

Another important note. While plot tends to be active, story tends to be reactive. All that internal stuff doesn’t change unless some outside influence makes it change. Essentially, some plot runs face-first into my characters and story dictates how they react to that plot. Maybe they react exactly the way we’d expect… but maybe they also step out of their comfort zone (willingly or not) and do something else. And then the plot keeps running into them again and again and—for better or for worse—they’re forced to take more steps. So the plot’s constantly nudging my characters to grow and change. We enjoy the plot, but what we get invested in is the story. We want to see these characters move out of their comfort zones and adapt to deal with whatever the plot’s hitting them with.

There’s probably some technical term for that but I can’t remember it.

Now, there are definitely books (and movies and tv shows and more) that are light on story and heavier on plot. And vice-versa. And some of them are very successful. But I really believe we can feel it when that balance gets thrown off in a book, when one of these two elements gets more weight than the other. We’ve all seen a movie that’s just pure plot where the characters dodge killer androids and punch Nazis and barely grow or change at all. They’re all essentially the same at the end as they were at the beginning. And I’m sure we’ve all seen or read something where… well, nothing happens. Characters just sit around pontificating on the nature of power, the unfairness of life, the chemical origins of love or, y’know, some other kind of navel-gazily topic. Because there’s no plot nudging them to do anything else.

Y’see, Timmy, I know that’s a bit polarizing for some folks, but I really do believe every good book should have a plot and a story. They can overlap. They can intertwine. But if I’m missing one or the other, no matter how many rationalizations I want to make… my work’s probably going to be lacking.

And my audience is going to be able to tell.

Next time… well, we talked about redemption a few weeks back. maybe it’s worth talking about it’s angry sibling. Revenge.

Until then… go write.

Sorry I missed last week. Was up against a deadline (which I ended up sort of hockey-stopping past anyway). Plus, I feel like… I mean, is it just me, or in a way does it feel like we’re all relearning the internet right now? One of the biggest social media site in the world’s collapsing and people are trying to figure out what to do now. Run to a new social media site? Focus on the personal site? Abandon the internet and start training carrier pigeons on the roof of your apartment building?

That’s how it feels to me, anyway.

But it’s given me time to think about a few things…

I want to bounce an idea off you. Another way to think about plot and story. I’ve talked about these things once or thrice before. To go back to my oft-referenced Shane Black-ism, plot is what happens outside my characters, story is what happens inside my characters.

Today, I’d like to frame this in a different way, though. This idea crossed my mind, and the more I think about it, the more right it sounds and feels. To me, anyway.

Allow me to explain. And we’ll do it the best way possible. With a little story.

Let’s say I decide to lose thirty pounds. As of tomorrow, I exercise more, eat better, maybe cut back on the booze a bit. I do this for five or six months and wow—thirty pounds, gone.

So what’s happened here, from a storytelling point of view?

Well, simply put, I set out to do something and… I did it. It’s technically a plot, but not much of a plot. Not much story either. With no real conflicts or hangups, there isn’t a lot of room for self-discovery. So no real character arc.

Plot is conflict. It’s forcing my characters out of their comfort zones, into these fish-out-of-water sort of situations. And these are the situations where story happens.

So what’s story?

Well, if story’s what goes on inside my character, that would mean a character arc is a change in my character. An alteration of their views. Cowards become brave. The miserly become generous. The self-centered become sympathetic to others. Or vice versa—nobody said character arcs have to be positive. Lots of heroes have become villains, lots of good folks have been pushed to do horrible things.

Put another way, story is why I decided to lose 30 pounds. Did I do it for health reasons? For image reasons?

It’s very easy to have plot without story. Hollywood’s shown us that again and again. Hell, life shows us that all the time. I bet all of us here personally know one or two people who simply will not change their views—they won’t grow or advance in any way—no matter what they see, what they experience, what they do.

I’ve also talked once or thrice about “character-based” books and films, the ones that scoff at the idea of plot in favor of beautiful tales where… well, nothing happens. People sit around and have long talks and then… don’t change. Or they go through some very artificial, forced “growth.”

Thing is, nobody decides to change their views on their own. None of us ever wake up one morning and think “hey, maybe I should completely reverse my views on student loan forgiveness.” Nobody randomly decides to become a serial killer in the shower. We’re influenced by things outside of us. Around us. The people and events we’re exposed to, the things we endure, are what make us see the world in a different light. The external events motivate the internal changes.

Going back to my initial example. So I lost 30 pounds. Why? And why now? Obviously I’d been okay with my physical condition until now, so what made me suddenly decide to drastically cut my weight? Maybe someone died and made me realize I’ve got a lot of unhealthy habits that need to change? Perhaps I finally get to meet that online crush and worried what are they going to think of the real me? Maybe someone died and I realized I needed to become a rooftop-dwelling vigilante who haunts the night. What was it that got me thinking about losing weight?

I think plot tends to be active, but story tends to be a bit more reactive. We actively participate in the plot, but story kinda just… happens to us. We don’t have as much control over it. The reason so many of those artsy tales have poor stories is specifically because they don’t have a plot. There’s nothing new or different happening to encourage that internal change.

Y’see, Timmy, plot is the effect my characters have on the events, but story is the effect the events have on my characters. They push each other along. Like when I walk—pushing off the right foot lets the left foot move forward, pushing off the left foot lets the right foot move forward, and so on. if I try to move with just one foot it can get a little… erratic. And there’s a decent chance I’ll just faceplant.

Anyway, that’s what I’d like you to think about as you poke at your own manuscript. If I’m going to skimp on plot, what’s going to cause those inner changes? Do I have a real story, or is it just a forced, false change of view? And if all I’ve got is plot… why is anyone doing anything? What kind of arc do they have?

Next time…

Look, I’ll be honest. I feel like I’ve been rambling a bit and there hasn’t been a ton of feedback since pulling the ranty blog over here. Is everyone just happy with the rambling? Is no one reading this? Is it more of that online ennui I was talking about up top? Let me know something. Anything. A topic you might like or even one you’re sick of hearing about all the time. And if nobody says anything… maybe I’ll just talk about my trip to Egypt.

Until then, go write.

And here we are, at that wonderful time of year when a young man’s thoughts turn toward… Nakatomi Plaza.

I wanted to do a holiday-ish post, and then (while watching a favorite seasonal movie) it hit me I could address a fierce debate that’s surged up over the past few years. And maybe I could even make it semi-educational. From a writing point of view.

Is Die Hard a Christmas movie?

Now, let’s be honest. If you’ve got strong opinions about this, I’m not going to change your mind. But if you’re somebody who cares a lot about stories (and if you’re reading this, I’d guess there’s a semi-decent chance you are) maybe this week’s little ramble will make you look at Mr. McLane’s late December adventure a little differently. And maybe some other stories, too.

With that disclaimer out of the way… let’s start by talking a bit about the difference between an element and a genre. I’ve mentioned this before, so I won’t go into it too much. Simply put, there are a lot of labels we can slap on both story elements and genres, but the presence of one doesn’t automatically create another. For example, there’s a strong romance element in Bloodshot, the Vin Diesel movie that came out earlier this year. It’s also got a few funny moments. But I don’t think any of you would be surprised to learn Bloodshot isn’t considered a romantic-comedy. Romance, comedy, suspense, mystery, horror, sci-fi… all of these things can be in a story that’s not in that same-named genre.

So let’s talk about Christmas as an element and as a genre.

As an element, Christmas can be a couple things. Easiest is the setting—it’s a specific timeframe that pretty much everyone on Earth knows and can understand to some extent, even if they don’t celebrate the holiday themselves. Also worth noting that Christmas is one of those (if you think about it) rare holidays that has a very fixed date, unlike lots of other that slide around the calendar a bit each year.

Christmas is also in the details and descriptions. Christmas trees, wreaths, presents, garland, lights, a Santa on every corner and a snowman in every yard. These are things I can mention in my story (or show in my movie) and they create an immediate association for people.

It’s also a mood, and a lot of traditions. If I’ve got a story set at Christmas, it’ll probably show up in dialogue. Let’s face it, people interact and talk a little differently in December, no matter which way they feel about any particular holiday. Scrooge is a little nastier. That super-peppy woman at the coffeeshop is almost scarily happy and peppy.

I think there’s a lot of movies and stories out there that get marketed as Christmas tales, but really just have a few random elements tossed in. We could move said movie to Memorial Day weekend or a random bank holiday and nothing notable would change. The romance would have the same meet cute, the comedy would have the same awkward moment at the dinner table, the zombie movie would have the same stupid montage of our protagonist fighting the horde witha baseball bat.

And this would bring us to Christmas the genre. There’s a lot of thoughts on defining genre (I’ve shared some too) but I think one notable thing is how abundant those elements are. Eventually the romance or the comedy becomes a dominant aspect and we think of this story as a romance, a comedy, or maybe a romantic comedy if it’s got both. The horror or sci-fi elements are so intrinsic to the plot my novel would crumble without them.

What marks something as part of the Christmas genre? The setting, absolutely. Sometimes the characters. It’s really hard to do a movie where Santa or Rudolph’s a main character and not have it be a Christmas story. And we see a lot of common themes in the Christmas genre. Joy. Peace. Happiness. Love. Togetherness.

Simple, right?

However…

There’s another aspect to this, and it’s something I hinted at up above and once talked about with (shameless name drop in three… two…) Shane Black. Christmas, maybe more than any other Western holiday, is an amplifier. Everything hits a little harder at this time of year. Romance is great, but Christmas romance is even better. Friendship is wonderful, but being with your friends at Christmas is fantastic. Family squabbles can be funny, but during the holidays they’re even funnier. And, yeah, puppies are great, but have you ever seen CHRISTMAS PUPPIES?!?

(seriously, you just grinned at the thought of Christmas puppies, didn’t you? See?)

And, yeah, this goes the other way. If something’s tense, it’s three times as tense at Christmas (scientifically measured). When something horrible happens, it’s even more horrible because it happened at Christmas. And to touch on a serious issue, depression’s never great, but depression during the holidays is just awful.

So I think it’s fair to say there are stories that may lean heavily toward non-Christmas elements, but the Christmas setting amplifies these stories. It inherently makes them more than they would be without it. Not a coincidence how many Christmas stories involve finding true love or reuniting with your family. And there’s a serious glut of Christmas horror movies. No, seriously. They’ve been a thing for decades.

Now… keeping all that in mind… let’s talk about Die Hard.

Die Hard is loaded with Christmas elements. I mean, 90% of it is set at a Christmas party gone very bad. And it’s a high-end party so decorations are everywhere. Really, look at a lot of these scenes and check out how often there’s a wreath, a garland, a Christmas tree, something. I’d bet half the scenes in this movie have a direct, visual tie to Christmas. And the music! It’s all Christmas music. All of it.

Plus, this setting is a big driver for the plot. John’s out in LA to see his kids and maybe patch things up with his wife. The Christmas party is why there are so many people conveniently in the building after hours to be taken as hostages. The watch she got as a Christmas gift from her boss is a point of contention (and a great Chekhov’s gun). When the FBI wants to shut down power to the building, the main reason there’s a fight is because it would mean shutting off the electricity to ten blocks of LA on Christmas Eve. Hell, John’s last minute surprise for Hans Gruber and his Huey Lewis look-alike pal? Remember how he pulls that off…?

Finally… the amplification factor. Realizing your relationship is collapsing is always bad, but on Christmas Eve? Sweet jebus, that’s a gut punch. Getting taken hostage absolutely sucks, but when it happens at the company Christmas party? And issuing ominous threats to the bad guys is badass, but when you get to tag on Ho-Ho-Ho…? Seriously, it’s one of the most memorable moments in a movie filled with great moments.

And so many of those moments get cranked up five or ten percent higher ‘cause we’re constantly reminded… it’s Christmas.

So… is Die Hard a Christmas movie? I mean, I think it is. And if you want to argue it isn’t then I think there’s a lot of other movies (many of them with Christmas in the title) that we’d have to toss out as well. ‘Cause if we’re saying hitting all these benchmarks doesn’t matter… well…

Look, nobody likes a grinch, okay?

With that, speaking of grinches, I give you one last shameless capitalist reminder that you can give people ebooks as last-minute gifts, and I happen to have a ton of them out there.