Story Bones (Or: The Ankle Bone's Connected to the Foot Bone)

The first time I sat down to talk writing with The Three (we'll call them M, L and S for the mystery), there was a common theme: They all love developing backstories for their characters, and they all love miserable endings, but they weren't sure how to get from one to the other.

There are a million ways to parse plot, but we can start with three questions that every story hangs on.

Question 1: What Does My Hero Want?

The answer to this question is the essence of your story because it's at the heart of what motivates your protagonist (who we'll call the hero here). You can look at the entire plot as just a series of events preventing your hero from getting what she wants.

Seems straightforward, right? Not so fast. A lot of the time, what the hero wants at the beginning of the story is not what she wants in the end. But let's talk about that a little later.

So how does the question What does my hero want? illuminate a story? Let's take a look at the Cinderella-meets-cyborg novel Cinder by Marissa Meyer. [Spoiler Alert! If you haven't read Cinder (and if you haven't, you should), you might want to skip the indented bits in this post.]

What does Cinder want?

For most of the story, Cinder just wants to get the heck of New Beijing. Everything she does is aimed at escaping the life she's leading—and pretty much everything that happens to her gets in the way of that. 

By the way, this question of what your hero wants isn’t just for your hero. Every character in your story—the sidekicks, the love interests, even (and especially) the villain—wants something. Your reader doesn't need to know what every character in your story wants (unless, of course, you're James Michener), but you'll create a deeper story and more believable characters if you know and show what the major characters want, how they're going to try to get it and how their actions to get what they want help or hurt your hero.

Question 2: What’s in the Way of My Hero Getting What She Wants?

When you’re worried your story’s moving too fast, your hero is probably getting what she wants too easily. Take Cranky Rah. If Cranky Rah wants a taco and all she has to do is get in the car, drive down to El Cerro Azul and get a taco, that’s boring. (Not to Cranky Rah, of course. Cranky Rah's thrilled to have a taco. She might even have two. But no one else wants to read about it.) Now, if Cranky Rah goes out to her car to go for a taco and notices someone slinking away from it and some suspicious wires dangling under the bumper and that causes her to think about how she had really hoped all that would be over once she had changed her name and gotten that facial reconstruction—well, that is definitely not boring.

Plot is the spine of the book; the scenes are the vertebrae. Each one is its own thing but is connected to the others. Together they’re the structure of the story. Each scene needs to make your reader care about your hero because if your reader cares, she’ll keep turning the pages to find out whether Cranky Rah gets her taco in the end. (She does.)

“But wait! How do I come up with all those scenes?” Chill out. I’m here to help. Scenes can be categorized in infinite ways (of course), but I like this one: Each scene involves an obstacle, a test or a tool.

• An Obstacle: Lots of things will get in the way of your hero getting what she wants: the villain or the hero’s well-meaning but clueless mom; a natural disaster or a closed restaurant. Maybe it’s the hero herself: Suddenly she can’t save the world because she got thrown into detention for mouthing off to her writing teacher. Obstacles push your hero further from her goal. To get back on track and move forward, she needs tools.

• A Tool: Tools take different shapes. Some are literal tools: Your hero needs to figure out how to grow and harvest corn to make her taco shell. Or she finds a clue that makes the prophecy make sense. Some tools are allies, the helpful friends your hero meets along the way. Some are lessons: Before she can get what she wants, your hero has to learn to trust or overcome her prejudices (maybe not all aliens are evil creatures who destroy tacos).

• A Test: Does your hero have the strength and conviction to get what she wants? Is what she thinks she wants really what she wants? Did she actually learn to trust? Can she sacrifice her own desires to do something Good? We only find out if she’s tested.

What's in Cinder's Way?

Cinder’s got obstacles a-plenty: Peony getting sick; Dr. Erland wanting to study her; Kai flirting with her and needing her help.

Tools? The too-small foot; the orange car; Peony’s dress (though Cinder doesn’t see it that way until she needs it). The information Cinder learns about who she really is comes in handy in the end. Cinder comes stocked with a couple of allies (Iko, Peony) and accumulates others, like Kai, Dr. Erland and the voice on the D-COMM chip, along the way.

Cinder faces a lot of tests, but the final exam is the ball. Cinder has to overcome her aversion to wearing Peony’s dress. She has to sacrifice her desire to escape. She has to risk being seen by Queen Levana. She has to face the disgust of others at what she is.

Question 3: Does Your Hero Get What She Wants?

Remember what I said up top about what the hero wants at the end often not being what she wanted at the beginning? This is generally because what the hero first wanted was self-serving, shallow or naïve. Overcoming obstacles, learning from her tools and enduring all those tests changes our hero. She has a greater perspective and realizes there’s something bigger she is called to do.

Ack! Does that mean a happy ending? Nah. Maybe the hero fails to do what she was called to do. Maybe she succeeds but ends up broken and alone. Maybe she gets exactly what she wanted in the beginning, but now she wants something different, something she can't have. Maybe in the end it’s not clear whether Good or Evil triumphs. But regardless of how your story ends, we need to see how your hero has changed.

So What About Cinder? Does She Get What She Wants? 

Yes and no. At the end of the first book in the series, she’s getting out of New Beijing and her beleaguered life like she wanted to at the beginning, but now what she wants is different: She wants to stay and help Kai. She accepts that she has a role to play in the salvation of New Beijing and maybe the world, and she has to sacrifice what she wants and what might make her happy for this Greater Good.

What If I Don't Know What My Hero Wants?! No Worries.

You don’t have to have all the answers when you start writing, and you should never not write a scene you’ve imagined just because you don’t see a purpose for it. Its purpose might develop as you write, the same way your characters develop as you get to know them. If you have a scene in your mind, write it. You can clean it up later; that’s what editing’s for. These questions can get you thinking and help you out of a jam when you’re not sure where to go next. Ask yourself: What does your character (or your villain) want? How can you mess up her day or send in some help? Where do you want her to end up and how can you get her there?