[MUSIC] Welcome to Segment three,

Character + Action = Plot. John Gardner, an American Novelist,

once quipped, there are only two plots in all of literature: someone goes on
a journey and a stranger comes to town. Hayao Miyazaki,
one of Japan's most celebrated animators, director of Spirited Away,
Howl's Moving Castle, Ponyo, and many others, said that what drives
animation is the will of the characters. You don't depict fate, you depict will. In
both these examples,
character is an integral component imply. In this section,
we're going to look at how character and action can work together
to create an exciting plot. Crafting great characters is covered in
any Bloom's course on character here on Coursera, but here's a supplement to
her thoughts on the five key questions you should ask yourself when
creating a great dynamic character. What do they want? This is the first and most
fundamental question you have to
answer when creating a good character. All great characters want something. Kurt
Vonnegut, author of Slaughterhouse
Five and many other great novels and stories wrote that the first
step in writing a good story was creating a character
that wanted something. Even if that something was
a simply a drink of water. Desire is a crucial component in creating
a believable that we can follow. This is different from
a character that needs something. A character that needs something is fate. A
character that wants something is will. What are their weaknesses? Many writers
give their characters traits
that make them honorable, virtuous, and in many cases invulnerable. Now while you
may want to hang out with
someone who's honorable or virtuous in real life, we don't really make for
interesting characters on the page. Think of the list of the greatest
characters in fiction: J Gatsby from The Great Gatsby, Holden
Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye, Harry Potter from the Harry Potter series.
Each of these characters were
more interesting to follow and to read about because of their weaknesses,
not their strengths. Superman isn't an interesting
character because he's invulnerable, Superman's an interesting character
because he's vulnerable to kryptonite. So when compiling a list of traits for
your characters, make sure that their weaknesses are more
interesting than their strengths. Where are they from? There's both a literal
answer for
this and a deeper, more emotional answer. First the literal. What are your
characters
biographical information? What city, state, town,
or country are they from? Did they grow up as a kid on the streets
of New York City or were they born and raised in a farm in Indiana? Understanding
this biographical
information helps inform us of what a character wants because it can
help us understand where they came from. Then, there's the more emotional answer.
Where are they from? As in, what is their emotional background? Did they have two
loving parents? Or were they raised by a single,
overworked mother? Did they lose a sister
when they were very young? Were they bullied in junior high? Where are they from
emotionally helps us
understand a character's motivation for acting the way that they do. And it can be
instrumental
in helping us understand why a character desires
a particular thing. It's also crucial in helping
us answer the next question. Where are they going? Pairing this question with where
are they
from gives you a complete character arc. That is, if I know why a character
wants a particular thing and I understand where they're from,
I have an understanding, not only of how hard they're going to try
to get what they want, but how resilient they'll be when rising actions are put
in their way to obstruct their path. I'll get to rising actions in a second. Last,
what can your characters
do to surprise you? Now this may sound weird, but
characters sometimes don't do what we expect them to do when
we put them on the page. They act in a more resourceful
way than you imagine. Or if they suspect they were walking
into an ambush in a dark room, they might decide, just like an actual
person, not to go into that room. Look for places in your story where your
characters do things you didn't expect them to do, and encourage your characters by
following
them instead of trying to lead them. Now that you have a rough idea of
what a character should look like, it's time to give that
character something to do. That's where rising actions come in. Here is a simplest
way to define
what exactly is a rising action. Your main character wants something. Some
obstacle,
it can be another thing another character, your main character's own flaws,
gets in your main character's way of getting that one thing
your character wants. Those obstacles are rising actions. Your character overcomes
these obstacles,
these rising actions only to encounter even larger obstacles
on the next level or in the next chapter. That's the next rising action. So, like
levels in a video game, your character has to keep
overcoming obstacles. They have to keep
overcoming rising actions until they reach the place where
they can try and get what they want. Once you have your character and your action,
you essentially
have the plot of your novel. Here's the best way I know
to summarize plot, or the best way to answer someone when
they ask what your book is about. For this you'll need
the inciting incident, a character, the obstacle, and the quest. Now how do you put
it all together? When an inciting incident
happens to character, they have to overcome conflict
slash obstacles, to complete quest. Now there are a lot of different ways of
structuring these basic elements, but that set up right there is the most efficient
way that I know to put them all together. This sentence construction is
also often called a pitch. That is the shorthand way to describe
what your book is about to an agent. A process outspreading a lot
more about in the capstone. Now, it's time to complete module A, so
head on over to the written assignment in the next segment and I'll show you how to
put everything we've learned together. [MUSIC]