Parts of Story: The Preconditions For Suspense

What follows is the final section of Parts of Story: Plot. (Yes, I'm doing a happy dance!) 

If you've been enjoying these posts, don't worry, there will be many more since I have yet to write the second and third parts in this series: Parts of Story: Setting and Characterization & Parts of Story: Point of View and Theme. That said, I will continue doing a normal blog post every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. All the chapters will be prefaced with "Parts of Story" so if you'd rather not read as I blog my book, those posts are easy to ignore.

For those of you who have signed up for my newsletter, I expect to have Parts of Story: Plot finished by Friday May 9th. At that time I'll send out an email to everyone. It is difficult to put into words how much I appreciate you guys and gals, my readers. As a small thank you I would like to make Parts of Story: Plot free for a week to anyone would requests a copy. I'll explain the logistics of all that in the newsletter. 

Okay! Enough talk. Here is the final chapter:

In order for a tale to be suspenseful, what must be the case?

1. Conflict

What is conflict? How is it generated? 

It's simple. Conflict results from the clash of two things: the character's goal and the opposition to that goal.

The hero seeks something, desires something--freedom, money, love, respect--and he has a goal. This goal is concrete. It's so specific one could film the hero attaining it. 

Something that the hero fears opposes him, something that has the ability to prevent the hero from achieving his goal and, thus, attaining his desire.

If the hero desires freedom then early parole might be his concrete goal, something we could depict by the huge outer doors of a prison opening and the hero walking out into the world, once again in charge of his life.

Perhaps the warden decides to frame the hero for something he didn't do and, in so doing, keep him imprisoned longer. 

If the hero desires money then a concrete goal might be to rob the bank on 1st and 3rd at three o'clock in the afternoon of July 4th, when the guards change shifts. 

But perhaps the bank brings in extra security guards for July 4th and some of them are Navy Seals.

And so on.

2. Stakes

To create suspense, the stakes of the conflict should be clearly spelled out in advance, before the hero is menaced by the danger. 

The general stakes for most horror movies are as follows: 

The hero wins: the hero (and possibly one or more other characters) escape the evil and live.

The hero loses: the hero fails to escape the evil and everyone dies.  

By the way, The Cabin in the Woods gives these stakes an interesting twist. It's a huge spoiler, so skip this paragraph if you haven't seen the movie and want the ending to be a surprise. Ready? Okay ... In The Cabin in the Woods Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard put an ironic twist on the stakes making it the case that if the hero (Marty) wins and escapes the evil then the world will end. On the other hand, if the hero allows himself to be killed then the world will be safe ... and five other people will be brutally murdered every single year the world stays that way. Talk about a no-win situation!

3. A ticking clock

“Make them laugh, make them cry, make them wait.”

-- Charles Dickens

To help build tension it helps if, in some way or other, the hero is racing against a clock, though perhaps not an actual clock. They must be under pressure. This both sets a deadline and gives the character time to plan, to agonize and, finally, to fight; time in which the reader can agonize.

Raise A Question

When we talk about creating suspense we, of course, are talking about an emotional state that exists within a reader/viewer/listener. Generally we try to evoke this emotional state by getting our readers to identify with our characters--especially our hero. We make it clear what the hero needs and then we force the protagonist into danger as he tries to attain his goal.

Yes, certainly, this kind of conflict creates suspense. But I would like to point out that there is another, related, way to create suspense: raise a question.

Lee Child is a great proponent of this method. He even goes so far as to say that it doesn't especially matter whether your readers care about the characters or the subject matter; there is something about a question being raised that makes us want to know the answer.

I agree.

The other day I read a fabulous short story--"In The Cave" by Tessa Hadley--where suspense was generated by a question the storyteller asked: What happened to break the hero's infatuation with her almost-boyfriend? 

Yes, I read on because the writing was enchanting, and because of the conflict generated by the clash of the protagonist's current state of affairs and the state of affairs she desired for herself. But, mostly, I read on because I wanted to know the answer to the question the storyteller had raised in the first paragraph: Why hadn't it worked out between the protagonist and her companion?

In Summary

Suspense is an emotional state within your reader, one most writers wish to evoke, and that emotional state depends upon two things. First, the reader asking the question: what happens next? Second, the reader being interested enough in the characters for the answer to matter.

Stakes: How To Make Goals Matter

I've already discussed conflict and the importance of having goals, but a goal is useless without stakes.

Stakes are the possible consequences of a course of action. What will happen if the protagonist achieves her goal? What will happen if she doesn't?  

Stakes generate tension. Conflict. They create suspense.

For example, let's say we have a character, Bob. Bob is on a diet, he wants to lose 20 pounds before his brother's wedding. Here are two possible versions of the story:

a. Bob lost 20 pounds in time for his brother's wedding.

b. Bob failed to lose 20 pounds.

Either way: So what? Why should we care?

How about this:

c. Bob makes a bet with his brother that if he can't fit into his tux in time for the wedding he'll pay for the wedding. But paying for the wedding would wipe out Bob's savings and he wouldn't be able to take his girlfriend on the dream vacation he has been promising her for the past four years. If Bob doesn't make good on his promise, his girlfriend will leave him. He knows he was an idiot to make the bet but what's done is done. He can't welsh. Will Bob be able to lose the 20 pounds before the wedding or will he fail, pay for his brother's wedding and die alone?

That's better. It's still not a terribly interesting story, but there's potential. As soon as Bob has something to lose and something to gain, we can begin to care about what happens to him.

The possible consequences of a course of action must be clear.

In order for the stakes to be clear, the goal must be clear.

A protagonist wants something. She can want more than one thing, but she must want one thing desperately and more than anything else. The thing that is desperately, passionately, wanted becomes the story goal. If the protagonist achieves the goal then she's succeeded, if not then she's failed.

For instance, in Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark, if Indiana finds the ark and brings it back with him then he has succeeded. If not, he's failed.

What are the stakes? If Indy achieves his goal then he gets professional kudos and the opportunity to study a fascinating artifact. If he doesn't, then the Nazi war machine will use the ark to help turn the tide of war in their favor.

Of course, the goal can change along the way. In The Firm Mitch McDeere starts out wanting to be a rich lawyer then, about halfway through the story, his goal changes: he just wants to be free, he doesn't want either the FBI or the mob to own him.

The stakes must matter to the characters

If the stakes don't matter to the characters that's like creating a beautiful car but neglecting to put any gas in the engine. If the stakes don't matter to the characters there's nothing to drive the story. After all, if your characters don't care about achieving the goal, why would readers?

The other day I was walking through a fairground and one of the hawkers called out to me. "Hey! You want to play this game? I know you do. It's fun and you could win a great prize." 

"Oh?" I said. "What prize?" 

The boy-man held up a big stuffed pink and green elephant.

No thanks. It would be cheaper--a lot cheaper--for me to just go out and buy myself a stuffed animal. Though if he'd held up the promise of a critique by, say, Stephen King I'd have played. Heck, he wouldn't have been able to get rid of me!

This point, about the stakes needing to matter to your characters, is also about believability. When the going gets tough and your character is getting beaten up, whether literally or figuratively, they need a strong--in other words believable--reason for why they keep on keeping on.

The stakes must tie into your characters' wants and fears.

How do you, as a storyteller, make it plausible that your characters will go through hell to achieve their goal? We've just seen how. You make the stakes matter to the characters. How do you do that? You tie the stakes into your characters wants and fears.

I think this is one reason why stakes are often life and death. Whether or not a person continues living matters a great deal and it doesn't need explanation. If a burglar pulls out a gun and points it at your character as they're taking a shortcut through a dark alley, the reader understands their panic. 

A character's wants and fears should be unique. So should the stakes.

What does the character want? What drives him? What gets him up in the morning? If he won an obscene amount of money what would he do with it? 

What does the character fear? When he was a kid what kind of beasties lived under his bed? Everyone fears hunger, pain and death, give your character unique fears. One of the things I loved about Mr. Monk was that he was scared of milk. Milk! Who is scared of milk? Monk, that's who. That says something about a character.

A character's wants should reveal something unique about him.

Why a character's wants and fears are important.

Why, from a storytelling perspective, do a character's wants and fears matter? I've heard different answers to this question. Some say they matter because they tie characters to their goals, other say they matter because they tie characters to the story. And those answers are, I think, good answers. They're both correct. 

But I would also say that the stakes tie the reader to the characters and, in so doing, to the story.

For example, in William Goldman's incomparable story, The Princess Bride, why did Inigo Montoya devote his life to becoming a master swordsman? It was because the six-fingered man (Count Rugen) killed his father and Inigo had sworn to avenge his father's death. So yes, sure, Inigo's goal was to kill Rugen but I would argue that generally, he wanted to do right by his father. The love that Inigo had for his father was the glue that kept him focused on his goal. 

What are the stakes for Inigo? When Inigo finally fights Count Rugen it seems as though Inigo is dying, felled by a sneaky, dishonorable, blow meted out by Rugen. We understand from the very beginning: the stakes of this contest, this battle, are life and death and Rugen isn't going to fight fair.

All that is true, but I would argue that for Inigo the stakes that matter to him aren't life and death--his life and death--they are whether he succeeds in avenging his father. If he were to discover that avenging his father would mean his death he wouldn't hesitate. If Inigo doesn't succeed in avenging his father's death, it seems to me that Inigo wouldn't want to live. Inigo doesn't count his life as precious, he lives with one goal in mind: avenge his father's death.

Does the reader/viewer see it that way as well? I don't think so. I think we care much more than Inigo does about his life. Yes, absolutely, we want to see justice done. We want to watch Inigo complete his quest and kill the dishonorable Count Rugen. But it is also very important to us--much more important than it is to Inigo himself--that he survive.  

So all that has been building up to this: the stakes of the character aren't necessarily our stakes. We don't necessarily care about the same things the character cares about. 

When, at the end of the story, the stakes of the battle between Inigo and Count Rugen come down to life and death, I care more about Inigo's life than he does. 

Stakes: Internal and External

Just as characters have internal and external goals so there are internal and external stakes.

For instance, in the movie Shrek the protagonist's internal conflict, his challenge, was to risk rejection and let people in, to let others know how he really felt (for example, to tell Princess Fiona he loved her). Shrek needed to risk rejection so he could make connections with others and find true love.

Shrek's outer challenge was to rescue Princess Fiona so Lord Farquaad would remove the fairytale creatures from his swamp.

Different kinds of stakes accompany different kinds of goals. If Shrek failed to rescue Princess Fiona from the castle, Lord Farquaad would have had Shrek killed. If Shrek failed to lower his defences and let people in, he would have lost the love of Princess Fiona and endured a sad and lonely existence in his now vacant swamp. A pyrrhic victory.

It's not size, it's complexity

It's not the size of the stakes that count, it's their complexity. Complex stakes involve not just a character's internal or external goals, but both together. It's not just about saving the world, it's about overcoming one's fears to save the world. 

Escalate the stakes

Stories contain complications. The hero sets out to do one thing, a complication pops up and blocks him, he tries to get around the complication by doing something but that only makes things worse, and so on.

As I discussed in the chapter on Try-Fail Cycles, the stakes escalate throughout the story until everything comes to a fever pitch at the end.

Conflicting goals mean conflicting stakes

For instance, in Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark, there's a terrific scene in the middle where Indy ducks into a tent to hide from the bad guys and comes across Marion tied to a tent pole. Indy begins to untie Marion then realizes that if the Nazis discover Marion missing they'll know he is in the camp looking for the ark. He can't give himself away.

What does Indy do? He ties Marion back up! She is furious with him. It's a great scene.

Lets take a look at the stakes at play in this scene. At the beginning of the scene Indy is trying to hide from a guard so he ducks inside a tent.

Indiana's stakes:

Goal: Escape the guard's notice and obtain the ark.

Success: Indiana doesn't get captured and is one step closer to his goal. 

Failure: Indiana is captured, possibly tortured. He fails to obtain the ark and the world is taken over by the Nazis.

Marion's stakes:

Goal: Get untied, sneak out of the Nazi camp, go to America.

Success: Marion gets her freedom.

Failure: Marion's future is unknown. She could be tortured, various nasty things could happen to her.

In the middle of the scene the stakes change when Indy realizes he has to tie Marion back up or risk losing the ark.

Indy's Goal: To NOT completely alienate the affections of Miriam.

Success: Marion's love and gratitude.

Failure: Her lasting wrath.

For Indy to succeed in winning Marion's affection--or just to avoid making her furious with him--he must help her escape. But he can't. If he helps her, then he risks his primary mission. So he fails to achieve this minor goal, accepts Marion's wrath, ties her back up, and exits the tent.

The point is that conflicting mini-goals with their own stakes often pop up within a scene. The scene between Indiana and Marion was especially interesting, I thought, because it highlighted their diametrically opposed interests. Marion would much rather just escape and forget all about the ark, but not Indy.

*  *  *

As we've seen, characters have goals. Depending upon whether they attain these goals different things come about. Good things will happen if they attain the goals, bad things if they don't. This--the space between where the character is and where the character could be; the possible future that awaits them--creates conflict and conflict is the engine that moves a story forward. Simple as that.

Parts of Story: Try-Fail Cycles

One of the most useful tools or techniques for writing engaging prose is the try-fail cycle. The try-fail cycle lies at the heart of how to unfold a conflict in such a way that it generates suspense.

The nuts and bolts of the try-fail cycle.

For every conflict that comes up, a question can be asked: Will our hero succeed? There are four possible answers:

1) Yes

2) Yes, BUT

3) No

4) No, AND

Let's look at each of these.

1. Yes.

Although in real life we love it when we get what we want, this is boring for others. When families get together at Christmas what's the gossip about? It's all about who got divorced, who lost their job. It's about the bad things--or at least the sad things--that have happened to the people in our lives.

Being told that, yes, the hero will succeed won't generate conflict. It's not interesting. 

Imagine someone told you the following story:

Bob woke up Wednesday morning with an overpowering desire for waffles. Bob promptly got up and took himself over to the nearest waffle house and ate a hot, flaky, buttery, waffle. The End.

Boring.

Even if we give Bob some motivation, it still doesn't help matters:

Bob's wife, Cindy, woke up Wednesday morning with an overpowering desire for waffles. Cindy was seven months pregnant and hadn't had any appetite for the last three days. Her doctor was worried. When Cindy woke up wanting waffles Bob was overjoyed. "You wait right here," he said, "I'll get you a stack of the fluffiest, most mouth watering, waffles you've ever had. Be right back." 

Bob jumped in his car, got the waffles, and gave them to his wife. She scarfed them down in no time and everyone was happy. The End.

See? Still boring.

I won't write it out, but what if we gave Bob a few obstacles? What if Bob jumped in his car and it wouldn't start? He investigates and discovers his battery is dead. Bob heads over to the neighbor's house hoping he'll help jump start his car but his neighbor isn't home.

Bob peers through the neighbor's window hoping the man just fell asleep on the couch. Instead of seeing his neighbor--an ancient relic who shuffles about, his underwear sagging dangerously--he sees an attractive young woman he doesn't recognize. She's moving around the living room putting valuables into a sack. His neighbour is being robbed!

Bob tries to call the police on his cell but can't get a signal. He wonders if he should bang on the window or say something to the intruder to scare her off. As Bob peers through the window wondering what he should do the woman turns and sees him. She screams something at him he doesn't understand (it's muffled by the glass), pulls a gun from her pocket and points it at him.

Bob, a spike of fear raising goosebumps along his arms ...

And so on.

That's not as boring. I might be able to do something with that. And it's all because we didn't give the hero what he wanted.

2. Yes, BUT ...

As we've seen, a hero needs setbacks because if what he desires were handed to him that would be dull.

With "Yes, BUT" we give the hero something he wanted but introduce a complication. For instance, in my story, Bob's goal was to drive to the waffle house and buy his wife some waffles. Is Bob able to get into his car? Yes! BUT his battery is dead. That's the complication. 

By setting up goals and obstacles and making Bob hop from one to the other, getting in more trouble each time he fails, the story becomes more interesting. Why? Because character is revealed through adversity.

3. No.

For fictional characters, answering the question, "Will the hero get what he desires?" with "No" is almost as bad as answering it with, "Yes." We don't want to see our heroes fail. We want to see them triumph over adversity, or at least make some progress toward triumphing. Imagine this scenario:

Bob woke up Wednesday morning with an overpowering desire for waffles. Bob tried to drive to a waffle house but his car wouldn't start. Dejected and waffle-less, Bob climbed back into bed. The End.

Not interesting.

4. No, AND ...

This is very common. Not only doesn't the protagonist achieve what he set out to but another complication is thrown in his path. We saw it above. The question is: will he get a jump start from his neighbour? The answer: No, AND he has a gun pointed at him.

I'll talk more about this in a minute.

Conflicts & Setbacks

Your main character has goals, he wants things. But if he got everything he wanted right away then your story would be as entertaining as watching paint dry. The solution: be mean. Give your main character setbacks, lots of them. 

In Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones goes on a quest to find and bring back the lost Ark of the Covenant. About halfway through the movie he finds the ark but is captured and, along with Marion, sealed inside an ancient burial vault and left to die.

What follows is one of the best sequences of conflicts and setbacks I've come across. Let's start after Indy finds the ark. 

Question: Does Indy find the ark?

Answer: Yes.

Complication: BUT Indy is captured, thrown into a pit of snakes, and the antagonist takes the ark.

Remember that it has been established early on in the movie that Indiana hates snakes. Spiders and all manner of creepy-crawlies he's fine with, just don't bring him near a snake! (And, yes, I know that there's no logical reason why there would be that many snakes in an ancient burial vault, but the scene still works.)

Question: Do Indy and Marion survive the pit of snakes? 

Answer: Yes, they use torches to keep the snakes at bay.

Complication: BUT the torches are about to burn out.

Question: Do Indy and Marion escape the pit of snakes before their torches burn out?

Answer: Yes, Indy crashes a pillar through a wall providing them an escape.

Complication: BUT the room they enter is filled with skeletons that seem to come alive.

Question: Will Indy and Marion escape the ancient burial vault they've been entombed in?

Answer: Yes.

Complication: BUT the bad guys have the ark and Indy needs to get it back.

Notice that after every goal Indy achieves there is a setback.

Another fabulous sequence in the first Indiana Jones movie occurs a little after the midpoint when Indy decides he and Marion need to get on the plane that the German's will be using to fly the ark out of the country. 

Indy fails in the end (the plane blows up) but the sequence of goals and conflicts create a memorable scene. Let's take a look.

Question: Will Indy commandeer the plane?

Answer: No.

Complication: AND Indy is spotted crawling up the plane, toward the pilot.

Question: Indy and a bad guy fight. Will Indy win?

Answer: Yes.

Complication: BUT a much bigger man starts a fight with Indy (AND the pilot sees indy and knows he's trying to commandeer the plane).

Question: The pilot starts to take pot shots at Indy. Will Indy escape being hit?

Answer: Yes, Indy dodges the pilot's bullets.

Complication: BUT the pilot keeps shooting. 

Question: Indy is fighting a huge bad guy. It looks like he has no chance of winning. Will Indy, against all odds, win the fight against the Man-Mountain? 

Answer: No, Indy is not going to win a fist-fight with the Man-Mountain.

Complication: AND the pilot is still shooting at him.

Question: The pilot takes aim at Indy, from this angle he can't miss. Will Indy survive?

Answer: Yes, indy survives. Marion hits the pilot over the head and knocks him unconscious.

Complication: BUT as the pilot slumps over in the cockpit he hits some levers and starts the plane rolling forward while Indy fights the Man-Mountain on the ground below.

Question: Marion climbs into the cockpit to remove the pilot and stop the plane from moving. Does she succeed?

Answer: No.

Complication: AND Marion gets locked inside the cockpit.

You get the idea. The entire scene is well worth watching.

One thing I want to point out before I leave this chapter is that the stakes for our hero gradually escalate throughout the scene. At first Indy just wants to board the plane, then he gets into a fist fight, then there's an impossibly huge guy he has to fight, then someone starts shooting at him, then the plane begins to move, then there's a truckload of German soldiers who see him, then Marion explodes gasoline containers, then there's gasoline on the ground running toward the fire.

At the end of the scene an ocean of gasoline is rushing toward the burning remains of the gas canisters while the Man-Mountain continues to beat Indy to a pulp and, of course, the whole camp has noticed the gasoline barrels explode and is rushing to investigate. It's quite something.

Try-Fail cycles are present in every story. The next time you read a book or watch one of your favorite TV shows, look for the try-fail cycles.

Parts of Story: The Importance of Sequels

In the previous chapter we discussed the structure of a sequel. Now lets talk about what a sequel does and how it does it.

Jim Butcher, author of the bestselling Dresden Files series, writes:

"Sequels, frankly, are what really make or break books. How you choose to show your reader your character's reactions determines everything about the reader's response to the events of the story."

Sequels have four main roles:

- Readers identify with characters. Sequels are where your readers bond with your characters; they are where, hopefully, readers will come to empathize with them. This is where the bulk of a character's development occurs.

- Time can move rapidly. Scenes are time-unified. If you want to skip forward, say, a week, that should happen in a sequel.

- Pacing. We use sequels to control the pace of a story. Long sequels slow down the pace while short ones speed it up.

- Fine tune your novel. By varying the amount of time you spend of each of a sequels parts, by varying your emphasis, you can change a flighty character into a brainy one or make a despicable character likeable. 

Lets take a look at each of these points.

1. Readers Identify With Characters

In Dwight V. Swain's book, Creating Characters, he writes that emotion is what gives a character direction. If, at the end of a scene, a bully has just kicked sand in your protagonist's face--or murdered their spouse--that character is going to be in pain and, consequently, motivated to make sure the killer pays for his actions. In short, strong emotion gives a character direction.

Further, in a sequel we get to show the kind of things the character dwells on, the sort of things he responds to. 

As characters reflect on the events of the previous scene each will focus on what, given their specific nature, was important to them. If a character is bloodthirsty she will recall her kills with gusto or longing. If a character is especially concerned with the welfare of others--perhaps overly so--she will focus on the harm she allowed to come to an innocent, perhaps ignoring the harm she herself suffered, or the reasons why the harm occurred.

2. Time Passes Quickly

A scene is time-unified; there are no breaks, no huge gaps. One thing happens, then another, then another, until the scene is over and the protagonist's goal has been attained--or not. Sequels are places where time can be disjointed and move quickly. 

3. Using Sequels To Control Pace

Character development tends to slow the pace of a story while action speeds it up. If you read a book and it seems as though you never got to know any of the characters, not enough to really care about them, chances are there were very few sequels in the book, or the sequels were short and insubstantial. 

On the other hand, if a book seems to drag, if it seems to explore the relationships between the characters ad nauseum, if there are short sprints of action followed by endless second-guessing and rumination, then chances are you'll find that it has long involved sequels and short scenes.

4. Sequels Help You Fine Tune Your Novel

Jim Butcher writes: 

"This basic structure for sequels is pretty much the ENTIRE secret of my success. I do it like this in every freaking book I write. I know it works because check it out. People like my books. They like them for some of the special effects, sure, and for some of the story ideas sometimes--but mostly it's because they find themselves caring about what happens to the characters, and that happens in sequels."

I think Jim Butcher is underestimating the appeal of both his unique voice and his wit, but that's still a powerful recommendation of sequels. I encourage you to read Jim Butcher's discussion of sequels in it's entirety. I'm not going to go into it in any depth here, but one of the most valuable things sequels can do for you is assist you in fine-tuning your novels during rewrites.

For instance, if you're writing a romance novel and there isn't enough pathos, enough passion, make the sequels longer and focus on your characters' emotional reactions. If the pace is lagging, make the sequels shorter. 

Here are a few character types Jim Butcher mentioned, types that can illustrate how sequels can help you shape a character.

Brainy characters:

- Emotional Reaction: Normal

- Cognitive Reaction: Heavy

- Anticipation: Light

- Decision/Choice: Normal or Light depending on what you want to do in the next scene.

It's no surprise that brainy characters will have more substantial Cognitive Reaction sections. Jim Butcher adds, though, that it's a good idea to play up the anticipation part. Build suspense, tension, around what is going to happen when the protagonist makes her move.

The result? In Sir Conan Arthur Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories the great detective hates explaining his method because then his amazing conclusion seems like a cheap trick, it seems as though anyone could have done it. It's the same here, by veiling exactly how the protagonist came to their conclusion the feat looks more impressive and generates curiosity in the reader: How'd he know that? 

Characters trying to pick a side:

- Emotional Reaction: Normal

- Cognitive Reaction: Normal

- Anticipation: Heavy

- Decision: None

This helps build suspense. By withholding a character's final decision from the reader, when that character goes into action in the next scene you know they've made a choice and you know what the stakes are but you don't know what their decision was. That makes a reader curious, and that curiosity will make them want to turn the page.

How to make a character's motivations clear:

If your character's motivations aren't clear then make sure that the stages of your sequels are in the right order (Emotional Reaction then Cognitive Reaction then Anticipation then Decision) and that his choices are consistent. 

For instance, if your protagonist is a hero's hero type (lawful good) he probably wouldn't choose to endanger the life of someone else even if it meant his death, except in extraordinary circumstances. I just finished reading George R.R. Martin's interview in Rolling Stone and he reminds us that even the best character can do horrible things given the right (or wrong) circumstances. Martin asks: If you could save the lives of your lover and your children by killing another man's child, would you? It's an excellent interview.

Sequels in a murder mystery:

- Emotional Reaction: Light

- Cognitive Reaction: Heavy

- Anticipation: Normal

- Decision/Choice: Light or None

In a murder mystery novel, the cognitive reaction part will receive a lot of space and each possible murderer is going to be given a lot of attention. But, as Jim Butcher points out, writers usually veil the "choice" aspect and keep their sleuth's best guess about the identity of the killer as surprise for the reveal at the end. That's when the sleuth explains his methods and how he came to figure out the identity of the murderer.

Romance

- Emotional Reaction: Heavy

- Cognitive Reaction: Light

- Anticipation: Normal

- Decision/Choice: Normal or Light

It isn't that heroes and heroines in romance stories are any less brainy than those in murder mysteries, but readers of romances are more interested in the interpersonal relationships than are readers of murder mysteries. Take, for example, a whodunit. As the name suggests, what the reader cares about is figuring out who did the crime. In such a mystery romantic connections that don't have anything to do with solving the crime would be an irritating irrelevance.

Those are just a few of the many, many, ways sequels can be used to shape your characters and, thus, your readers reactions.

Since writing these chapters I've begun seeing sequels everywhere, not just in books; TV shows and movies use them as well.

In the next chapter we'll look at the stakes of the hero's quest.

(Note: This post is from one of the chapters of my upcoming book, Parts of Story, which I usually publish separately. But this particular chapter proved to be a bit thorny and was taking so much time I decided to post it as one of my three weekly posts. I'm sorry if that creates any confusion. Thanks for your patience as I (slowly) blog my book. Cheers!)

Parts of Story: The Structure of Sequels

As Dwight V. Swain says in Techniques of the Selling Writer, sequels take the protagonist from the disaster of one scene to the goal of the next one. The protagonist reacts to the disaster, reviews the courses of action which are open to him and then picks one. This sets the goal for the next scene.

Here is the skeleton of a sequel:

a. Emotional reaction

b. Cognitive reaction

c. Anticipation

d. Choice/Decision

Those points more or less mirror Jim Butcher's categories:

a. Emotional reaction

b. Review, Logic & Reason

c. Anticipation

d. Choice

For good measure, here is how Dwight V. Swain saw the structure of sequels:

a. Reaction

b. Dilemma

c. Decision

As you can see, the basic structure is the same, Jim Butcher just makes explicit a stage--anticipation--that was implicit in Swain's list. 

Before we examine each of these points; each of the 'ribs' of the skeleton of a sequel; it will help to have an example. Let's create a character. I'll call her Sue Lynch. Sue is giving a talk at a computer security conference tomorrow. The talk will be about her research into developing a promising, though controversial, new encryption technology. Sue is on her way to the airport when she realizes she forgot to upload her powerpoint presentation. She would ask Tom, her husband, to bring the thumbdrive to her at the airport but he is out of town for the weekend on a business trip.

When Sue opens the door to the apartment she sees her husband lying on the floor surrounded by a pool of blood. One look tells her he's dead. The room is in shambles. Bookcases have been emptied, drawers pulled out, cushions slashed. 

a. Emotional reaction

The first thing Sue does is have an emotional reaction. She doesn't think anything, not right away. She just feels. But what does she feel?

Paul Ekman holds that the basic human emotions are excitement, tenderness, fear, anger, sadness and happiness. Depending on the kind of character Sue is, she might have any of these emotions. But keep in mind that the kind of reaction she has is going to tell readers a lot about her. 

Continuing my example: When Sue sees her husband's body she feels as though someone doused her with a bucket of cold water. She staggers and sits on the floor. A kind of static numbness drives her thoughts away. Then the grief hits and she's physically sick.

b. Cognitive reaction

At some point the emotional shock is going to begin to fade and the character is going to begin to think. Specifically, she is going to pick out what, to her, are the salient points of the situation and use logic and reason to figure out her options, look at different courses of action, and then reach a decision.

Let's unpack that.

i. Review what happened.

We've already discussed the character's emotional reaction. Now the character focuses on making sense of the disaster she suffered.  

The character starts to make sense of the disaster by reviewing what just happened. This shows the reader what sorts of things are important to her and, therefore, what kind of pseudo-person she is. It opens a window to her soul.

Let's unpack this. How does this work? Let's go back to my example. Let's say that the following are the salient features of the setting:

i.a) The bullet holes. There are two bullet holes in her late husband's chest but, otherwise, his body seems unmarked. 

i.b) Nearly all their valuables are accounted for. Sue does a quick search of the apartment. As far as she can tell, the only thing taken was her home laptop (she has her work one with her), her iPad and the thumb drives she kept in her desk.

i.c) Her husband wasn't supposed to be home, he was supposed to be in another city consulting on a case with a colleague. He is wearing his lucky tie and smells of his favorite cologne.

i.d) The murderer destroyed her late husband's collection of baseball cards. He ripped them from their plastic cases and tore them to bits.

i.e) A bottle of wine and what look like the remains of two glasses lie near an overturned table. 

First thing. What is going through Sue's mind?

As Sue searches the apartment she is reacting to her husband's death. What does she remember? What does she dwell on? This will tell us several things. First, it will tell us what kind of pseudo-person Sue is (does she concentrate on the bad times or the good?) as well as show us what kind of relationship they had. Had the love between them dimmed? Were they fighting? Was he resentful of her success? Or perhaps he wanted her to work less so they could spend more time together?

Let's give Sue another big emotional reaction. It would be natural for her to value something she kept in the apartment. As she surveys the devastation, it occurs to her that this thing--whatever it is--may have been stolen. As soon as this thought occurs to her she will run to wherever she kept it.

We're the storyteller, so let's have it that Sue and Tom store their valuables in a safe. This is where she runs. The safe contains the normal stuff--important papers, deeds, their marriage licence and so on--but there are two other things here that interest us. One is something of great emotional value but not much monetary value while the other is something of great monetary value but not much emotional value. Which will Sue be more concerned about? Which would she most grieve the loss of? Her choice will tell us about the kind of pseudo-person she is.

ii. The Possibilities + Logic

Given Sue's situation and the things she has noticed, what will she infer?

From (i.a) I would have Sue infer that there wasn't a struggle. Further, from the placement of the bullets, two to the heart, Sue would believe that the killer was a good shot.

From (i.b) I would have Sue infer that the burglar was after something tiny. Something about the size of a thumb drive. Or perhaps something that could be stored on a thumb drive, something like the latest version of her experimental encryption program.

From (i.c) and (i.e) I would have Sue infer that her husband was having an affair.

From (i.d) I would have Sue not infer anything in particular, though she might wonder whether the murderer was looking for an optical memory strip hidden within the cards.  After learning her husband was having an affair she might feel a twinge of glee at their destruction.

Taking all the evidence together, I would have Sue doubt that this was the work of a burglar. Perhaps someone who wanted access to her research had seduced Tom. Once in the apartment this mystery woman had killed him and done a thorough search.

iii. What now? Possible Courses Of Action

The protagonist, Sue, has suffered a crushing defeat (her husband's death), she has reviewed the situation, explored the possibilities and formed some conclusions. At this point the question is: What now? This defeat needs to be translated into a goal that the protagonist can pursue in the next scene. 

In our example, Sue could do any of the following:

iii.a) Sue could call the police and turn the matter over to them. 

If Tom surprised a burglar then time is of the essence and Sue should call the police. There is also the possibility that, if her husband was having an affair, whoever killed Tom abducted this girl. The killer could have wounded her, she could be dying. 

How Sue responds to this will show us her character. It would be natural for her to hate the other woman, but I would have Sue be compassionate. She may dislike the other woman on principle, but she doesn't want her to die.

iii.b)  If Tom's death wasn't the result of a burglary gone wrong then perhaps calling the police wouldn't be the best thing to do. The killer would soon discover that none of the data storage devises he'd taken contained her program. As it stood, he would think she was on an airplane heading to the conference. That's where he'd go to look for her. That could give her a head start. 

She could run away. Hide. If she called the police, he would know where she was. Yes, she could hide the program but that would just mean that instead of killing her he'd torture her for its location.

She could destroy the program. But that wouldn't solve anything. No one would believe her.

No. Her only hope was to remain hidden. She had enough money to leave the country and maintain a decent standard of living in a country which lacked an extradition treaty with the US.

iii.c) Sue could attempt to find out who killed her husband and why. 

If the intruder wasn't a random burglar, if he wanted her encryption program, then Sue would feel responsible for her husband's death. She would feel she owed it to him to make his killer pay. Also, she doesn't understand why anyone would want her encryption program badly enough to kill. Yes, she developed an encryption algorithm that is unbreakable, but why would anyone kill for that? Perhaps what they wanted was to prevent it from being used.

At some point Sue will realize someone else is in danger. If she doesn't show up at the conference, the killer will target the only other person who worked on her encryption program: her assistant, Mark Fleming. If the killer searches Mark's room and he doesn't find the program, what then? Would he kill Mark? Torture him for information? How far would the killer go to possess her program? 

iv. Stakes + Anticipation

Each of these three courses of action has its own stakes. 

If Sue follows path (iii.a) then she will grieve the loss of her husband but, otherwise, her life will carry on as normal. Her job will remain unchanged, she will continue with her research and will give speeches at other conferences.

If Sue follows path (iii.b), though, her life will be radically changed. She will have to go into hiding, which would mean she couldn't work. She would lose her job and the security it provided. Also, if she disappeared after visiting the apartment the police are likely to think she killed her husband. If Sue makes it to another country and hides there for the rest of her life she would be safe. She would be alive and have enough money to live out her days with a reasonable standard of living. Who knows, one day she might even be able to move back to the US.

If Sue follows path (iii.c) her life will change most of all. She will have to face her fears and follow the killer to the conference. Taking this path would require that Sue take risks but she is naturally conservative. Careful. 

Sue phones her assistant and warn him of the danger he could be in but when she calls his cell he doesn't answer. She calls Mark's hotel--he was supposed to arrive a day early--and is told he hasn't checked in yet. Is Mark dead already? Or perhaps Mark is working with whoever broke into her apartment searching for the program.

Sue decides to attend the convention, but under another identity. She will hide in plain sight and try to find the killer who tearing her life apart.

By now the stakes of each path, each choice, are clear. Readers know not only what Sue's so-concrete-you-could-take-a-picture-of-it goal is, but what will happen if she fails to achieve it as well as what will happen if she does.

As the story progresses and Sue's goal becomes more difficult to attain, the pressure for the protagonist to quit increases. For her continued pursuit of her goal to remain plausible the stakes must increase over time, especially the negative stakes.

c. Anticipation

Sometimes I think of this step as part of a character's cognitive reaction, but Jim Butcher points out that in a horror story the anticipation aspect of the sequel is of primary importance.

In Joss Whedon's and Drew Goddard's movie The Cabin in the Woods there is a part where the characters have gathered in the basement of a cabin. One of the characters, Dana, has found an old journal and reads aloud from it. The group learns that a latin spell has been written in its pages, one that will restore--bring back from death--the family of the girl who wrote it.

The fool, who is really the only sane person here, says, "No! Don't read the spell."

A disembodied voice whispers: Read it, read it out loud.

At this point--even though I knew she was definitely going to read the spell--I was sitting on the edge of my seat screaming at the television: Don't read the spell!

Of course she read it, it's a horror movie after all! Still, there was anticipation. What would happen after she read the spell?

Notice that there isn't a lot of reasoning going on here, the sequel skips that part, but it draws out anticipation. This is typical of a horror movie since a big part of making a movie terrifying is anticipating the horrors to come.

d. Choice/Decision

Which course of action the character chooses has a lot to do with the kind of pseudo-person she is. Does she care about the welfare of others more than her own? Will she risk her own welfare to save others pain? Either answer, yes or no, shows us a lot about her.

In the end, Sue realizes she needs to find out who killed her husband and make them pay. She also needs to find out why her assistant, Mark, didn't check in. Is he dead? Is he in league with her husband's killer? She needs answers and the only place she's going to find them is at the convention.

Now we've got the general goal for the next scene (find out who killed her husband and why) as well as a specific one (get into the conference undetected). 

The character has made a choice, they know what to expect--or at least they think they do. Now it is time to act. This leads us into the next scene.

In this chapter I've looked at the structure of a sequel. In the next I'll examine why sequels lie at the heart of good storytelling.

Parts of Story: A General Story Structure

Now that I've talked a bit about genre and how important it is to know what genre, and subgenre, your book falls into, I'd like to step back and look at what all genre stories have in common. What follows is a description of what I think is the most common structure for genre tales. 

A Three Act Structure

The lion's share of stories can be broken into three acts.

Act One—The Ordinary World—First Quarter

Act One is where you introduce your characters and the world they live in. As the story unfurls, readers find out more about the characters as they interact with each other as well as with the world around them, both physical and social. We see their strengths and weaknesses, their hopes and fears, their quirks and idiosyncrasies. The most important character in all this is the hero because the story is going to revolve around his quest. That's what a story is, after all: a description of a character's pursuit of a goal.[1]

The Inciting Incident And The Call To Adventure

I'll talk more about this in the next section, but The Ordinary World of the hero is relatively static, at least in the beginning. Often, there is something deeply wrong with the hero's normal existence. The hero exists in a state of imperfection. He has reached a false local optimum. He isn't happy, and he knows he's not happy, but fear prevents him from changing; the fear that if he tries to change things will get worse. 

During the Inciting Incident something happens that changes the hero's world, a change that will, eventually, shatter his status quo. The Inciting Incident creates an imbalance, an inequality, that must be addressed. This is the problem the hero seeks to solve, the wrong he seeks to right, when he answers the Call to Adventure.

For instance, in the movie Shrek the namesake character is an ogre who wants to be left alone in his swamp. Of course, what he really wants is for people not to make up their minds about him before they meet him. He wants to forge some sort of connection with others, but he's (understandably) afraid of being rejected because it happens so often.

When Lord Farquaad exiles legions of fairytale creatures to Shrek's swamp (this is the Inciting Incident), Shrek's solitude is stripped away. This sends Shrek and Donkey off on a mission to confront Lord Farquaad and convince him to send the fairy tale creatures somewhere--anywhere--else. But Lord Farquaad has another idea. 

Lord Farquaad proposes (this is Shrek's Call to Adventure) that if Shrek conquers the fire-breathing dragon and frees Princess Fiona from her imprisonment in the castle, that he will grant Shrek's wish and clear his swamp of fairytale creatures. Shrek accepts and, in the process, falls in love with the princess. Now Shrek has another goal, to tell the princess he loves her. What prevents him from doing so is his fear of rejection. This fear is what Shrek has to overcome if he is to achieve his goal and win Fiona's hand in marriage.

The Lock In

At the end of the first act it often happens that the hero is locked into his quest. He has a moment of realization and understands that if he takes up the quest he must leave his ordinary world behind. It is important that the hero understand the stakes involved and, despite the dismal odds of success, choose to take up the quest knowing that, if he does, there is no going back.

I've just talked about the movie Shrek. When Lord Farquaad gives Shrek his Call to Adventure, Shrek has a choice: accept or not. But archers perch atop the walls ready to shoot him dead if he refuses. After that, Shrek is locked in to the quest. 

In Star Wars when Luke finds his aunt and uncle dead, massacred by storm troopers, he understands there is no going back. His ordinary world is gone. 

I think the most obvious case of the lock in is The Matrix. At the end of Act One Morpheus gives Neo a choice: take the red pill or the blue bill. The red pill will change Neo's entire world and will show him the truth he has always searched for. The blue pill will restore the status quo of the Ordinary World. His choice is irreversible.

Act Two—The Special World—The Middle Half

At the end of Act One the hero answers the Call to Adventure and crosses the threshold into the Special World. Here everything is different, strange, reversed. The hero's strength (usually characters have at least one strength) isn't going to serve him as well here, perhaps it even puts him at a disadvantage. 

In the first part of Act Two the hero goes through a series of Tests And Trials, most of which he fails, and he makes new acquaintances, both Allies And Enemies. It is also here at around the beginning of Act Two that the B-story starts. Some of those the hero meets will become his staunch allies and will join his quest while others will become his enemies. This time of testing is also a time of Fun And Games. In a movie this is where you often have a feel-good montage.  

The first half of Act Two often contains a moment of bonding. If there is a romance, the hero and his love interest may deepen their relationship. After all, the hero is about to confront the antagonist and, perhaps, pay with his life. If there is no romance, the story will likely still contain a moment of bonding, a pause, a girding of the loins, as well as a review of the stakes. What will happen if the hero loses? If he wins? Who will it effect? What will be the cost? What will be the reward? 

The Midpoint

Finally, the moment of confrontation has arrived. The Ordeal has begun. Since we know the stakes of the battle, we watch anxiously as the hero risks everything to defeat his foe. The confrontation between the hero and his nemesis can be a physical one but it needn't be. Sometimes they are each going after the same item, the same treasure. In the movie Indiana Jones and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy loses the ark to Dr. René Belloq, his nemesis. In Star Wars Luke discovers the Death Star.

Regardless of whether a physical confrontation occurs, the midpoint represents a sea change in the story. Where before the hero was passive, now he is active. This doesn't occur all at once, but it marks the change. Often this change occurs because the hero receives information. This information could be about the antagonist. It could also be about the nature of the Special World and the Antagonist's--as well as the hero's--place in it. 

After the confrontation at the midpoint the stakes of the battle get cashed out. If the hero is successful, he will get a reward. If the hero isn't successful then usually this is just the beginning of the grief that rains down upon him and those he cares about. Often, if the hero fails at the midpoint he will also fail at the climax of the story. Similarly, if the hero wins at the midpoint he will often win at the climax.

Regardless of whether the hero wins at the midpoint, the stakes go up. Way up. The hero hasn't resolved the conflict, he has increased it. I can't stress this enough. Where before it was only the hero's life at stake now it is also the lives of the hero's allies. Perhaps, by the time we reach the climax, even the lives of his loved ones back home (as well as, perhaps, the world or even the entire galaxy) will lie in the balance. 

Another important change that occurs around the midpoint is that now it's not just the villain who is pushing the events, driving them, it is also the hero. You even see this in stories that have a non-traditional structure, stories such as The Usual Suspects.

Toward the end of Act Two matters have radically changed, and for the worse. There is often a Major Setback, quickly followed by an All Hope Is Lost moment. As the name implies, something occurs that transforms the hero's world, or his view of it, and brings him to his lowest point.

For instance, in the movie Shrek the Major Setback comes when he overhears Princess Fiona talking with Donkey. Shrek misunderstands who Fiona was talking about and jumps to the mistaken conclusion that Fiona thinks he is ugly and unlovable. Since he was working up the courage to tell Fiona he loved her, this revelation comes as quite a blow.

The All Hope Is Lost moment comes shortly after when Shrek is cruel to Donkey. Of course we, the audience, know Shrek is acting as he is because he mistakenly believes Donkey was talking against him. Shrek tells Donkey to go away, that he isn't welcome in his swamp again, ever! This is Shrek's lowest point. As a result of his own actions, Shrek has become estranged from the two people who care about him most.

Act Three—The Return Home—Last Quarter

After the All Is Lost moment the B-story is usually resolved. As a result, an important change occurs in the hero and he is able to resolve his inner conflict. As a result, the hero is able to figure out how to turn matters around and make one last desperate try to achieve his goal. 

 I don't mean a superhuman ability--though, depending on the kind of story this is, it could be. But whatever it is, the ground must have been laid for it, otherwise it would be a cheat. Perhaps the hero is now, finally, able to think clearly. Perhaps the hero understands how other people feel (he lacked empathy), or perhaps he had to release a certain way of thinking that was holding him back.

Whatever the case, something fundamental within the hero changes and, as a result, he is able to defeat the villain and achieve his goal. (I should mention, though, that not all heroes have an internal conflict. If this is the case, the hero can draw upon some characteristic that defines him such as his strength or his knowledge. Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark is a good example of a hero without any real internal conflict.)

One way of describing this point in a story, this beat, is that the scales drop from the hero's eyes. He thought he knew how things were, but he didn't. To use Shrek as an example again, the ogre thought he knew how the Princess and Donkey felt about him, but he didn't. He was dead wrong. After the All Hope Is Lost point Donkey comes to Shrek and tells him Fiona wasn't calling him ugly and unlovable. Donkey doesn't tell Shrek she was describing herself because that's not his secret to tell. This is when the proverbial scales fall from Shrek's eyes and he realizes he acted like an idiot. Shrek decides to do what he should have done long before, he decides to risk rejection and ridicule and tell Princess Fiona he loves her.

Here's another example. At the end of The Matrix Neo realizes he's The One, and that he loves Trinity. At that moment the scales drop from his eyes; he sees what he had been blind to. He finally understands and this realization transforms him. It allows him to do something he wouldn't have otherwise been able to do. Neo triumphs over The Matrix and becomes The One. 

I'm not suggesting that this life-transforming moment of self-realization occurs at the end of every story. It doesn't. But it happens often enough that I wanted to mention it. 

But, of course, the hero doesn't have to win. Sometimes the revelation comes, but too late. Sometimes the revelation doesn't come at all.

Aftermath

In the Aftermath, or Wrap Up, the audience sees the effects of the hero's efforts. How did the hero's Ordinary World change as a result of his adventure? What was his reward? Or, if he failed, what was the cost of his failure? Tie up loose ends.

Caveat

I don't want to leave anyone with the impression that there's only one story structure. As Chuck Wendig says, every story has a structure and there are as many story structures as there are stories. No one can look at the structure of a story and say, "That's wrong!" just because it's different.

The structure I've talked about, above, is one I've been thinking about and working on for a while now. I think that it describes over 90% of the stories I've read, listened to, or watched; or at least parts of it do. That's because it looks at a story abstractly. It is a web of generalizations and so is almost guaranteed to get something right! 

I like using story structures. Often, if I feel that something is wrong with a story but I just can't put my finger on it, I go back to basics and study various story structures in an attempt to puzzle out what the problem is. I think that's the bottom line. If something helps you, use it, if it doesn't, ignore it. Let your own sense of what is right for you be the bottom line.

Links/References

1. Often stories have more than one main character. In these cases there is, still, often, one character whose arc is predominant. Where this isn't the case then I look at the story as really a combination of many stories that are held together by a common thread such as a person or theme.

Also, while I usually use the term "protagonist" to describe the main character of a story here the word "hero" seems more appropriate.

Parts of Story: How Setting Can Help Bring Characters To Life

When writing a scene, how much description is enough?

All writers have certain things we do well--or at least, that we do better than others. Things that, relatively speaking, we excel at. I know someone who writes descriptions that make you feel like you're there; you taste the salt in the sea air and feel the early morning chill. But when this person writes dialogue, although it's good, it's not at the same level. And that's fine! Actually, it's reassuring. It wouldn't be, well, human, to be terrific at everything. (Which, I suppose, is an argument that Neil Gaiman is not quite human, but I digress.)

Descriptions aren't my best thing. There, I've said it. I'm talking specifically about the sort of description that needs to go at the beginning of scenes and stories to orient the reader; description that isn't intimately connected with the action of the story but needs to be mentioned. I can't tell you the number of first drafts I've finished where I had given no hint as to the protagonist's hair color, it's length, whether she was cute or handsome or beautiful. Or even a he or a she!

Why? Because it wasn't intimately connected with the action of the story. Or so I thought. Obviously, I under-describe. Readers like to know, for example, whether a character is male or female because they form assumptions, assumptions that may later be proved wrong and that can be disconcerting. 

So back to my question: When writing a scene, how much description is enough? 

I've spent some time mulling this question over and rereading many of the books I've listed in the recommended reading section. I think that, perhaps, in order to answer this question we need to recognize that:

1. A setting isn't just physical, it's also emotional.

In his book, The Fire In Fiction, Donald Maass writes that we should select specific things about the characters environment and describe them in a way that shows the character's emotions. He writes that the combination of details about the setting and the emotions attached to them, "together, make a place a living thing. Setting comes alive partly in its details and partly in the way that the story's characters experience it. Either element alone is fine, but both working together deliver a sense of place without parallel."

Yes. Exactly. That's a great way of stating what we want to do. But (and this is the 64,000 dollar question), how do we do it? I hate it when writers state a question perfectly then quickly pronounce it a problem for the ages, shake their hoary heads, and move on.

Donald Maass doesn't do this. He answers the question and does so with examples. I won't reproduce them here, those were Donald Maass' examples, passages that spoke to him. I've written before about Stephen King, enough perhaps to give you the idea that I admire his writing, especially the way he could draw me into the worlds he created.[2] (I used to swear there had to be dark magic involved!)

But I think Donald Maass, here, has put his finger on another technique King uses, one which I hadn't noticed.[4] The following are the first few paragraphs from one of Stephen King's best books, The Shining (1977).

"Jack Torrance thought: Officious little prick.

"Ullman stood five-five, and when he moved, it was with the prissy speed that seems to be the exclusive domain of all small plump men. The part in his hair was exact, and his dark suit was sober but comforting. I am a man you can bring your problems to, that suit said to the paying customer. To the hired help it spoke more curtly: This had better be good, you. There was a red carnation in the lapel, perhaps so that no one on the street would mistake Stuart Ullman for the local undertaker.

"As he listened to Ullman speak, Jack admitted to himself that he probably could not have liked any man on that side of the desk--under the circumstances."[1]

Right away, I noticed three things about these paragraphs. First, King uses them to describe the characters not the room. We understand the characters, the circumstances, first. Then we get to the physical setting. 

a. Character first, setting second.

The first time I read the above paragraphs I don't think I realized I wasn't 'seeing' an office. I don't think I realized that Jack Torrance was there for a job interview. But that's okay. That information isn't important, not right away. What is important is that we understand the kind of man Jack is, what is important is that we understand how he reacts to Ullman as well as what sort of relationship they have to each other. And we get that (a start at least) from the opening paragraphs, all without knowing the color of each man's hair, if the walls are painted or wallpapered, what kind of desk Ullman has, and so on.

But look at the information we are given. In the first sentence we are told that the protagonist is Jack Torrence and, through that, we know he's (probably) male. We also have an idea of how old Jack is, an age range. A child probably wouldn't have thought 'officious.' That belies not just an adults vocabulary but, most likely, either an educated person or someone who reads a lot. 

Also, a child who thought "officious little prick" (depending on their temperament) might well have also said it. But Jack didn't. He's angry but controlling it. 

And, finally, that first sentence also gives us the point of view: third person, subjective.

"Ullman stood five-five, and when he moved, it was with the prissy speed that seems to be the exclusive domain of all small plump men."

From the second sentence (I'm only going to talk about the first two) we learn that Ullman is short and fat and that Jack thought he was prissy. It's interesting (interesting to me at least!) that while we're told how tall Ullman is, how he moves, that he's plump--quite a number of physical details--we aren't given any of this information about Jack Torrence, the protagonist. 

But that makes perfect sense, doesn't it? After all, we're seeing all this from Jack's perspective, from the narrators point-of-view which is firmly ensconced in Jack's mind. As a result everything Jack sees, everything the narrator tells us about the world, also tells us about Jack. And Jack--this character--couldn't care less about his hair color or how it's cut and styled. One feels Jack would label that as 'prissy,' something Ullman would be concerned about. 

It isn't until a few paragraphs later that we learn what we are watching is a job interview and that the characters are in Ullman's office:

"He slipped Jack’s application back into the file. The file went into a drawer. The desk top was now completely bare except for a blotter, a telephone, a Tensor lamp, and an in/out basket. Both sides of the in/out were empty, too.

"Ullman stood up and went to the file cabinet in the corner. 'Step around the desk, if you will, Mr. Torrance. We’ll look at the floor plans.' He brought back five large sheets and set them down on the glossy walnut plain of the desk. Jack stood by his shoulder, very much aware of the scent of Ullman’s cologne. All my men wear English Leather or they wear nothing at all came into his mind for no reason at all, and he had to clamp his tongue between his teeth to keep in a bray of laughter. Beyond the wall, faintly, came the sounds of the Overlook Hotel's kitchen, gearing down from lunch."

The second thing that jumps out at me is that ...

b. Intimate settings reflect the personality of the characters.

When Stephen King--or, rather, the narrator--describes Ullman's desk (see the passage, above), he is describing Ullman. He is describing items--the desk, the chair, the in/out basket--that Ullman has impressed his personality on. These setting details, therefore, are a reflection of Ullman's character, of who he is and how he wants the world to be. 

It is only in the last paragraph that we are given the information that these characters are at the Overlook Hotel and that it's just after lunch. By this time we know that Jack was enduring a job interview ("He slipped Jack's application back into the file"). But we are only interested in these things because, now, we are interested in these men--particularly Jack--and the peculiar tension between them.

c. Use the setting to introduce conflict.

King uses the setting--which largely consists of the two men, at least at the beginning--to inject a mammoth amount of conflict right from the first line: "Officious little prick." But, as I mentioned above, Jack's thoughts tell us more about him than about Mr. Ullman:

"Jack admitted to himself that he probably could not have liked any man on that side of the desk--under the circumstances."

What are the circumstances? King doesn't answer this question right away. He lets the information unfurl, naturally, like we're perched on Jack Torrance's shoulder, riding along with him on this most disagreeable of days, a voyeur learning about this character and his world; a world which just happens to be the world of the story.

And we're hooked!

Or at least I am. King gets me every time. After I read about three or four paragraphs I couldn't put the book down if I tried. And who's trying? 

2. Describe only those aspects of the setting that are relevant to the scene's purpose.

I've spent most of this chapter talking about Stephen King and what his work can show us about how and when to use description (he also has a wonderful discussion of this in his book, On Writing). I'd like to close with a more general point about keeping description focused.

As you know, each scene has a purpose: the protagonist wants to achieve some goal and they probably won't. Each scene must advance the overall plot and move the story closer to the final, inevitable, show down. 

- Who is the main character, the focal character, in the scene?[3] 

- What is the focal character's goal? 

- What must the focal character accomplish to attain that goal? 

- What opposing force prevents the focal character from attaining their goal? 

- How does the focal character react to the opposing force? 

- How does the focal character meet this opposition? 

Once you answer these questions you'll not only know the scene's purpose you'll know its overall structure.

But how does that help us describe the setting? Donald Maass suggests that to discover what aspects of the setting are important--to discover what aspects of the setting we must describe to readers--we must first find the turning points. To do this ask:

- What has changed?

- When does it change?

- How is the focal character affected by this change?

Make sure that setting has been described in enough detail, and with enough emotion, to ground each turning point. What has led up to these points, these changes?

Everything else--including details about the setting--should focus on these points. If a detail of setting doesn't contribute to any of the turning points in the scene then ask yourself: do you really need to include it? Perhaps it would be better placed in another scene. Or another novel. 

I hope some of what I've written, above, is of help in describing how much description is enough. In the final analysis I agree with Stephen King: It's all on the table. Use whatever you want, especially on the first draft. Experiment, try new things, let it fly! After you've set your manuscript aside for awhile and come back to it, and hopefully read it with fresh eyes, then it will be easier for you to see which parts work and which don't, as well as where you've described too much or too little.

(Note: This is a chapter from my upcoming book: Parts of Story. I've decided to blog the book because, that way, I'm more likely to stay on track. And it seems to be working (Yay!).)

Links/References

1. Notice that these paragraphs were written in third person and yet King seems to have achieved all the intimacy of first person. I've written a bit about how Stephen King might have achieved this--one of the techniques I think he makes use of--in this post: Free Indirect Discourse: How To Create A Window Into A Character's Soul.

2. Stephen King, since writing his enormously helpful book, On Writing, is well known for believing that stories exist external to, independently of, writers. He believes he discovers stories in much the same way an archaeologist discovers dinosaur bones.

3. Briefly, a viewpoint character is the character whose point of view the chapter is being told from. If the point of view is limited then this viewpoint character will be one of the characters in the story. The focal character is the character that all the fuss is about; they are the protagonist, the main actor. For example, in many of the original Sherlock Holmes stories, Holmes was the focal character while Watson was the viewpoint character. 

4. Stephen King also, and very powerfully, uses his character's emotion-laden thoughts to lay bare their souls and make us interested in them. Or at least that's what I think. I've written a bit about this in my article on Free Indirect Discourse (I've given the link, above, in note 1). See also: How Did Agatha Christie Hook Readers?

5. The remark about it all being on the table is from King's book, "On Writing."