Episode 222 - Perfecting Your Story's Trajectory with Mary Carroll Moore
January 23, 2023
"See if there's a question asked at the beginning of the story, like, will this world be saved? And then what kind of answer is given at the end. Yes, it's going to be saved. No, it's not going to be saved. Then take those two points, which on the storyboard would be the point one and point five, and then consider point three. Take your question that you begin with, will this city be saved, and see if you can twist it." —Mary Carroll Moore
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Mary Carroll Moore discusses PERFECTING YOUR STORY'S TRAJECTORY, including the value of having a visual map of your story's structure; the importance of understanding the triggering event that generates the crisis and the turn from outer to inner crisis; the power of considering how the question posed at the beginning of the story maps to the answer given at the end of the story; adjusting a plot to meet genre tropes; the often overlooked arc of setting and avoiding setting cliches; and using a storyboard to check for cause and effect.
If one of those topics piques your interest, you can easily jump to that section on YouTube by clicking on the flagged timestamps in the description.
If one of those topics piques your interest, you can easily jump to that section on YouTube by clicking on the flagged timestamps in the description.
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Mary Carroll Moore is the author of 14 books in 3 genres, including the Amazon bestselling novel and Hot New Release, A WOMAN'S GUIDE TO SEARCH & RESCUE, and in fact, I met Mary when I interviewed her about that book as part of my WHAT I LEARNED video series. She’s also the author of the PEN-Faulkner nominated novel QUALITIES OF LIGHT. She has taught storyboarding and writing craft for two decades at writing schools around the U.S., including Grub Street in Boston and the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis.
Links
Mary's Links:
Author website: https://www.marycarrollmoore.com
Facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/marycarrollmoore/
Instagram profile: https://www.instagram.com/marycarrollmoore/
LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marycarrollmoore/
YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/MaryCarrollMoore
Matty's Links:
Affiliate links
Events
Author website: https://www.marycarrollmoore.com
Facebook profile: https://www.facebook.com/marycarrollmoore/
Instagram profile: https://www.instagram.com/marycarrollmoore/
LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marycarrollmoore/
YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/MaryCarrollMoore
Matty's Links:
Affiliate links
Events
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Mary! What was the piece of advice she offered that most resonated with you?
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AI-generated Summary
When crafting a compelling narrative, one significant task every writer must grapple with is creating a believable, engaging plot and characters, all while setting the scene flawlessly. This article serves as an enriching guide, based on a podcast conversation between Matty and best-selling author Mary Carol Moore, to creating powerful script arcs focusing on character, setting, and plot development.
Understanding Narrative Arcs
According to Mary, the trajectory a character takes from the start to the end of a book constitutes a narrative arc. Mary underlines the importance of making sure this trajectory isn't just about the character but includes the evolution of setting images and plot progression. To effectively harness narrative arcs, Mary advises intertwining character progression, plot development, and setting evolvement.
Plot Arc: The Compelling Question and Answer
Mapping your plot arc begins with identifying a central question for your story. This question forms the heart of your plot, and its resolution often provides the climax of the tale. Effectively, the crux of the plot lies in the systematic detailing of how the question asked at the beginning of the story gets answered at the end.
During the conversation, Mary stressed the importance of breaking that initial question up into a secondary question that comes up midway. A new challenge or crisis in the middle of the narrative can provide the necessary traction to keep the reader hooked.
Character Arc: Personality Development Matters
Similar to the plot arc, character arcs are structured around the evolution of the characters, displaying their personal growth throughout the story. They present in stages, allowing for character evolution at every step.
As put beautifully by Mary during the discussion, "Characters present a certain way, even in literature, and they think they're this way, and then something has to happen to make them more vulnerable, more revealed to the reader." Her conversation with Matty revolved around how an underlying event in the middle of a story can reveal a deep part of the character, prompting readers to connect more intensely with them.
Setting Arc: Unveiling the Story World
A commonly forgettable yet crucial part of the narrative arcs is the setting. For many readers and writers, the setting evolves into a character of its own. Whether it is the beautiful depiction of trees or the desolate portrayal of an abandoned city, the stage forms the canvas for the events to unfold.
Mary highly recommends writers to consider the setting as an essential tool to increase tension in the narrative. Going contrary to typical plot setups like 'a dark stormy night', exploring opposite scenarios, such as having intense scenes on a sunny, beautiful day, can make the experience even creepier and create thought-provoking reactions from the characters in response.
Ending Notes
Building a story is more than stitching events together. Whether you are a writer who starts with the plot, focuses on the characters, or begins with the world their characters inhabit, mingling these three elements- plot, character, and setting, remains crucial. Despite the challenges involved in arranging these elements of a story, doing so gives writers control over their narrative world and, hence, makes the process remarkably satisfying.
Remember, if you wish, you can find more about character, setting, and plot arcs as well as other writing techniques on Mary Carol Moore's YouTube channel. For a weekly dose of writing tips, you may also subscribe to her free Substack newsletter - 'Your Weekly Writing Exercise.' Stay tuned to more such enlightening conversations on our podcast, and keep exploring the wonderful world of writing.
Understanding Narrative Arcs
According to Mary, the trajectory a character takes from the start to the end of a book constitutes a narrative arc. Mary underlines the importance of making sure this trajectory isn't just about the character but includes the evolution of setting images and plot progression. To effectively harness narrative arcs, Mary advises intertwining character progression, plot development, and setting evolvement.
Plot Arc: The Compelling Question and Answer
Mapping your plot arc begins with identifying a central question for your story. This question forms the heart of your plot, and its resolution often provides the climax of the tale. Effectively, the crux of the plot lies in the systematic detailing of how the question asked at the beginning of the story gets answered at the end.
During the conversation, Mary stressed the importance of breaking that initial question up into a secondary question that comes up midway. A new challenge or crisis in the middle of the narrative can provide the necessary traction to keep the reader hooked.
Character Arc: Personality Development Matters
Similar to the plot arc, character arcs are structured around the evolution of the characters, displaying their personal growth throughout the story. They present in stages, allowing for character evolution at every step.
As put beautifully by Mary during the discussion, "Characters present a certain way, even in literature, and they think they're this way, and then something has to happen to make them more vulnerable, more revealed to the reader." Her conversation with Matty revolved around how an underlying event in the middle of a story can reveal a deep part of the character, prompting readers to connect more intensely with them.
Setting Arc: Unveiling the Story World
A commonly forgettable yet crucial part of the narrative arcs is the setting. For many readers and writers, the setting evolves into a character of its own. Whether it is the beautiful depiction of trees or the desolate portrayal of an abandoned city, the stage forms the canvas for the events to unfold.
Mary highly recommends writers to consider the setting as an essential tool to increase tension in the narrative. Going contrary to typical plot setups like 'a dark stormy night', exploring opposite scenarios, such as having intense scenes on a sunny, beautiful day, can make the experience even creepier and create thought-provoking reactions from the characters in response.
Ending Notes
Building a story is more than stitching events together. Whether you are a writer who starts with the plot, focuses on the characters, or begins with the world their characters inhabit, mingling these three elements- plot, character, and setting, remains crucial. Despite the challenges involved in arranging these elements of a story, doing so gives writers control over their narrative world and, hence, makes the process remarkably satisfying.
Remember, if you wish, you can find more about character, setting, and plot arcs as well as other writing techniques on Mary Carol Moore's YouTube channel. For a weekly dose of writing tips, you may also subscribe to her free Substack newsletter - 'Your Weekly Writing Exercise.' Stay tuned to more such enlightening conversations on our podcast, and keep exploring the wonderful world of writing.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Matty: Hello and welcome to the Indie Author Podcast. Today, my guest is Mary Carol Moore. Hey, Mary, how are you doing?
[00:00:06] Mary: Hi, great to be here again.
Meet Mary Carroll Moore
[00:00:09] Matty: Yes, it is great to have you here. And to give our listeners and viewers a little bit of background on you, Mary Carol Moore is the author of 14 books in three genres, including the Amazon bestselling novel and hot new release, "A Woman's Guide to Search and Rescue." I met Mary when I interviewed her about that book as part of my What I Learned video series. I was so intrigued; I had to read "A Woman's Guide to Search and Rescue," which was wonderful, and I can highly recommend.
It had two of the things that intrigue me either personally or vicariously—aviation. We talked about that earlier; I took flying lessons for a while, and my husband's a pilot. So the aviation aspect was fascinating. Also, my husband's the front man in a band in the Philadelphia area. So I also enjoyed the band-related aspects of "A Woman's Guide to Search and Rescue."
Mary is also the author of the Penn Faulkner-nominated novel, "Qualities of Light." She has taught storyboarding and writing craft for two decades at writing schools around the U.S., including Grub Street in Boston and the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis.
I invited Mary on the podcast to talk about narrative arcs. So let's make sure we're all coming at this from the same perspective.
How does Mary define narrative arcs?
[00:01:19] Matty: How do you define narrative arcs?
[00:01:22] Mary: It's a great question because there are different ways to define it, depending on what writing books you read or classes you take. For me, a narrative arc is the trajectory or the path through the story that the character takes—how the character evolves from the beginning of the book to the end of the book. I also use narrative arcs to refer to the evolution of setting images and plot. So, for me, the narrative arcs weave in three ways, and I think that's what we're going to be talking about today.
[00:01:55] Matty: Yeah, well, let's dive right in about what those three aspects of the arc are.
Having a visual map of your story's structure
[00:02:01] Mary: Okay. So when I've taught storyboarding at different writing schools, people come to me with the big question of structure. Many writers are confused about structure. We know how to flow things; we do NaNoWriMo or get all those words out on paper. When we come to actually analyzing the draft for whether it holds together structurally, this is often the biggest problem. When I worked as a teacher and a coach, I found that many manuscripts had a beautiful story, setting, and characters, but there weren't many solid structural elements. Readers kind of got lost. We're talking about creating a deliberate structure that you start with, and then you can go into your writing, which is flow writing or free writing, but you always have this visual map to come back to.
[00:02:55] Mary: And so, the easiest one to start with is plot. When people are used to doing all kinds of plot outlines, like "Save the Cat," and storyboards, there are just so many different ways to do plot outlines. I use a W storyboard because it has an up and down movement, and that is the thing that plots usually forget to do, like the middle. There needs to be something happening in the middle that really pulls the reader into a second reveal, a second crisis. We have the starting crisis that's usually in the beginning chapter or early in the book, and then we have a middle crisis that develops that original one, makes it even harder, worse, and then that will lead us to the place where things are resolved. A character has to face themselves or something has to change for the plot to be resolved. So that's, in a nutshell, how this particular approach to narrative arcs works. Yes.
[00:03:53] Matty: A question about that because you were saying that the plot arc is the good one to start out with. Do you find that the stumbling block that writers are facing is that they have the idea for that arc but they're forgetting about that secondary one that keeps pulling the reader through in the middle? Or is it just that it's missing, or is it just ineffectively constructed?
The triggering event that generates the crisis
[00:04:17] Mary: Well, that's a really good question. It's often missing, but if it is constructed, it doesn't tie back into the first one, so that the first one has to generate what I call the triggering event. It has to generate the crisis that runs through the first half of the book. But then there's a place in the middle of the book where things have been resolved to some extent, but something new has to come up. Some new crisis has to come up, new information. Oftentimes, this is where there's a double-crossing or a betrayal or something that you thought was true is not true, and oh my god, there's another big problem to solve. So this problem-solving has to be in, I feel, in stages. If you dump it all on the reader at the beginning, which many writers do, they think, okay, we're going to blow up a city and that will create the entire story, but it's not really true for the character part of it because characters evolve, and they might have solved that first problem, but what happens to the problem inside themselves? So having a second crisis often in the plot allows the character that evolution that you need to create the character's arc, the character's narrative arc.
[00:05:25] Matty: So what that made me think of, and I think because you mentioned blowing up the city, and I didn't think about this ahead, so listeners, bear with me, but what it made me think of was the Will Smith movie that was, I think it was called "I Am Legend," but it was at least based on the book "I Am Legend." It's where Will Smith is in the sort of post-apocalyptic world and is trying to escape the zombies. And what I thought of was the scene where, spoiler alert, his dog gets bitten by a zombie or wounded by a zombie. So now the dog is going to turn into a zombie. And that's both, I think, kind of that secondary hook that's going to keep the reader interested, but it's also very revealing of the character's personality. Is that actually an example of what you're talking about? Or is that an example of something different?
[00:06:17] Mary: No, that's a great example because what you're looking for in that second crisis is something that will reveal a deep part of the character, something that hasn't been shown yet. Because characters present a certain way, even in literature, and they think they're this way, and then something has to happen to make them actually more vulnerable, more revealed to the reader, so the reader can actually get behind them.
And this is a big part of literature today. We used to go for action stories that didn't really have to reveal any character, but then action stories, thrillers, started to reveal character, and then that started to be part of our culture as readers. We have to understand a person and who's behind this event and get to know them, and even if we don't like them, there's somebody that we are connected to by the end, and I think that point in the middle, in my particular narrative arc storyboards, that's where the reader gets to know the character. So, yes, a great example, Matty.
[00:07:14] Matty: Yeah, the example of character arc, this is an example that I think comes up each time, is the James Bond character. Like, I think if we were having this interview, I don't know, five or ten years ago, James Bond was always the example of the exception, the proof of the rule that James Bond has no character arc. Yet, I think as time went on, the screenwriters or the writers added that because I think it was something that current audiences would have been disappointed not to see.
[00:07:43] Mary: Yeah, I'm really intrigued by this. So I'm reading an older thriller that I love that's called "The Dog Stars" by Peter Heller. He's a literary thriller writer from Colorado, and he's won all sorts of awards, and he's very prolific. But this "Dog Stars" was his first book, and I was kind of preparing for this talk today with you, and I wanted to look at a book that I love and find out why I'm so invested in the character. And it turns out that he has a crisis right at that point of the mid-book, where something personal happens to him, and it causes him to make all these decisions that he wouldn't have made before. So he actually takes the risk that he had talked himself out of because he's lost something that was incredibly valuable to him.
And I thought, wow, what a great structure, you know? He's got that plot point in the middle that causes the character to face something. The end of his world, so then he has nothing to lose. He can go ahead and move forward into this huge risk, which of course creates the second half of the book and turns out really good in the end. But I think all these good writers, you know, the really good ones, you can kind of take their books and analyze them and find that second point.
[00:08:55] Matty: So I sort of took you from plot arc to character arc, but is there more you wanted to talk about with regard to the structure of the plot arc and what writers should be looking for to assess the plot arc in their own work?
How does the question posed at the beginning of the story map to the answer given at the end of the story?
[00:09:07] Mary: I think one of the best techniques I gave to my students when I was teaching was to see if there's a question asked at the beginning of the story, like, will this world be saved? You know, the blowing-up city thing. And then what kind of answer is given at the end. Yes, it's going to be saved. No, it's not going to be saved.
We're all going to colonize the new planet, whatever it is. So take those two points, the beginning and the ending point, which on the storyboard would be point one and point five because they're five points on a storyboard. And then consider point three. Take your question that you begin with, "Will this city be saved?" and see if you can twist it. What happens if this city is not saved? And then what other question would evolve from that? For instance, would we leave this city, or would we try to save it? So that there's kind of a new question asked at the center of the book. That seemed to help people, just to start with a question, figure out the answer at the end, and then break that question up so that you have a second question at the middle, and that's the thing that you can base your plot point on or your character change on.
For instance, in this Peter Heller book, we have the question seems to be, am I going to survive this terrible situation that's happened to the world? You know, what will my life be like? Will I ever find love again? Can I stand living with this person that I'm living with who's the only other survivor that I know of? And then in the middle, the question is, how will I live without this thing that I've just lost? So it becomes more personal. It's almost like there's an individual question or a limited question in the beginning and then that evolves into a more universal question in the middle. And that seemed to help my students sometimes just to think of it as first in terms of questions and answers and then a midpoint question.
[00:11:43] Matty: Yeah, I like that idea of applying sort of like the rules you learn about writing a newspaper article, the who, what, when, where, why, and how, and say, and the middle point say, well, is it a good question, how is this going to happen, or is it a good question, why is this going to happen, or to whom is it going to happen, or whatever.
[00:11:17] Mary: Yeah, that's a fantastic way to approach it. Yeah.
[00:11:20] Matty: I was talking about Alien with someone, and I was trying to apply that, I'm trying to think in Alien, because Alien seems to me to be sort of at one level, at least a very straightforward, you know, there's a monster, are we going to get away from the monster kind of plotline. And I'm trying to think if there was that moment in the middle, in the way that there was that moment with the dog in “I Am Legend.”
[00:11:43] Mary: Think about the character. Like is there a question that the character asks in the middle that's different? So, are we going to get away from the monster? But is there something that becomes more personal than just the escape? Or am I going to be able to save someone? For instance, is often people take it out of just the initial crisis into something more personal.
[00:12:08] Matty: Yeah, I guess the only thing I'm thinking of is that, and I finally remembered where I was talking about this was a patron event with Jeff Elkins, the Dialogue Doctor, that there's this romantic interest that I think was inserted late in the game. It seemed like the kind of thing that was probably slapped on there at the end because they decided they needed a romantic relationship. So there was this kind of twist that all the characters weren't equally important to save, that's kind of, you know, there were people that I think the viewer wanted more to survive the encounter with the alien than others, the captain being one when it became clear that there was this relationship between Ripley and the captain, and some of the other characters were sort of odious and you didn't really care when they got eaten up by the monster.
[00:13:00] Matty: So I keep, keep taking off on these little sidetracks. Maybe I'll keep this in just because it's fun.
[00:13:05] Mary: I think it is.
[00:13:08] Matty: Yeah, so are there other examples you can think of in addition to the Dog Stars, where there are these questions? Because I've never heard anybody talk about structuring quite this way with this question in the middle that provides the impetus for drawing people through. I think it's worth some careful examination.
How Mary inserted the twist in A WOMAN'S GUIDE TO SEARCH AND RESCUE
[00:13:26] Mary: Well, can I use my book? “The Woman's Guide to Search and Rescue”? Okay. So, this book, I had to structure really carefully because I was working with the same dilemma that I had a woman who starts off with a plane crash. She escapes from the law, and she crashes her plane, and she has to meet her estranged sister. So, I thought, okay, well, that's a great start. It all, you know, all works.
But what am I going to have in the middle? Because, she's injured and she's stuck in a cabin in a blizzard, which is the worst kind of plot point you can imagine to work out of. You know, you've got someone stuck in a room or a cabin or anything. It's really bad news for structure. So I had to figure out what would happen in the middle that would change everything. And so what I thought was, what if her sister discovers her there and she decides to first turn her in and then decides to help her.
So that, it was about the two characters coming together, and the middle of my book is a fight, basically a fight scene with the two characters. They've decided that they're not going to collaborate, they're not going to be sisters, they're not going to be family, and the sister that finds the hidden sister, so Kate is the search and rescue pilot, and Red is the one who's escaped, and so Kate finds Red on her property, endangering her own daughter, and she's got to make this huge decision about what she's going to do.
A turn from outer crisis to inner crisis
[00:14:54] Mary: So that was my second plot point. And I decided to put that kind of in the middle of the book so that there would be not just the story of the search and rescue outwardly but the search and rescue inwardly. So that is what turned it from the outer crisis of the fleeing and the crime being investigated and Red being wanted by the law into something that's more important to me in this story, which is about the unity of the two sisters and how they're going to come together. And at first, of course, they can't. So the crisis is, oh my god, Red is in danger, she's come all this way, and she can't get help. So that was the point where she lost everything.
And Kate also, in a sense, lost everything because, you know, she's been lonely all her life, and here's the chance for her to have a family, and she says no, you know, but just because of her own rules and her decision to be somebody, you know, I would never help somebody who's slightly shady, you know, suspected of a crime.
So that was kind of my example of what I could do. So that changed everything, and now if Kate's going to help Red, then all of the rest of it comes together. Suddenly, they're a team, and Kate uses all her skills. She goes out to the woods again, and she finds the missing item that will exonerate Red.
So, all of the things that happen later are the things that will actually create the rest of the story. So, not to just point at my own work, but that was an example of me struggling for years trying to figure out, well, how do I get her out of this stupid cabin in a blizzard? You know, what can I create here? Well, what if her sister finds her and then refuses to help her? So that would be like the bottom, a moment of, you know, nothing is worse than this. So I guess that would be an example.
Adjusting a plot to meet genre tropes
[00:16:45] Matty: Yeah, well, I'm glad you brought that up because I did have a question, and we're sort of giving spoilers away for lots of things, but I don't think it would deter anyone from actually getting “A Woman's Guide to Search and Rescue” based on our conversation, but one thing I was expecting that didn't happen, and it didn't lessen my enjoyment of the story, which I thought was wonderful, but did make me wonder, is that I was expecting that the, the bad guy, Cotton,
[00:17:09] Mary: Billy, Billy Cotton. Yeah, good.
[00:17:12] Matty: is, so there's the sort of flashback aspect of Red and Billy's interaction before the story takes place that sets the stage for what happens later, and then there's the altercation with Red and Billy, I think, kind of in the middle of the book, maybe a third over the way or three or something like that. But then I was expecting Billy to show up at the cabin because what I thought it was building to was going to be, the big climactic confrontation where Red was going to save her sister and her niece from Billy, who shows up in this seemingly safe place.
Mary: Well, I had that in there. I did.
[00:17:53] Matty: So can you talk a little bit about how you made the decision there?
[00:17:58] Mary: Well, I had him come back and burn the cabin down with them in it. And I thought that was great. So that was like the last, you know, big conflict scene. And, the feedback I got was, it's too much. It's, it makes it more thriller than women's lit. So I'm really interested in the women relationships in this book. I think that the whole idea of women heroes and found family and all of those aspects, those are the things that really do it for me.
The thriller part, I'm not really a thriller writer. So my feedback was, you know, you've got too many murders, too many things happening here and you've got to tone it down and we don't really need Billy again. We really are invested in the sisters. So I reluctantly took that out and that's going to be an outtake. I'm going to surely do something with it. Cause it was a fabulous scene. And, Alex ends up shooting Billy and he dies in the cabin fire. And I thought, oh, this is great.
[00:18:55] Matty: So he doesn't actually burn them with them in it, and then they all die except Billy.
[00:18:58] Mary: No, he sets it on fire and they, and Red is alert and found, finds him and goes out and tries to talk him into, you know, anyway, there's a whole thing where she manages to get him into the cabin and then she and Alex escape and he's drunk and he's basically a mess and he lights the cabin on fire and burns in it.
[00:22:38] Mary: So that was when I was, you know, trying to figure out how to simplify. I had actually given the manuscript to a beta reader, who said, you know, it was really great, but she said, I had to go to work the next day, and I couldn't put it down. So you know, you've got to fix that. And that was the feedback I was looking for. I thought, okay, I really want to fix that.
I really want to fix it so that you could read it in three days and really enjoy it. And so that was, you know, looking at the plot and cutting things out and then, and then making sure that the character was a continuous evolution. And that was, it was hard. It was really hard because the book was really all over the place. It was a mess.
And so I had to go back and cut and cut and cut. And then the editor, when I got the editor that I hired to help me with the plot, she suggested a couple of scenes in the middle, that were, where the characters were sitting around, and she just suggested I take them out because they weren't really evolving the plot.
They were just kind of interesting but a side road. And, that was a big revelation for me, you know, how plot can be, and it was fascinating because it really made the book much tighter.
[00:23:43] Matty: Yeah. So I'm also curious about the decision to tell the story out of chronological order because there's the initial plane crash that sort of sets everything in motion, but then you cut to what is the, you know, the big climactic confrontation with Billy before it actually happens, and then it happens.
And then there's the interaction between, Red and Billy before the story started. Can you talk a little bit about how you decided to structure it that way?
Playing with timeline and tension
[00:24:11] Mary: Oh, I love playing with time. I do. I do it in all my books. So that's a really good point. I think, I think that, I don't know, it was probably five or six years ago. I went to see a play in New York and it was called Constellations. And it was the same, the same thing, but it was so beautifully done.
I just remember thinking, you know, I've got to try this sometime because what they did was play with the timeline and the two characters met each other over and over again. It was just a couple, but they met each other over and over again in different times and different places, different situations. So I really wanted to try that.
And in this book, it really worked because I wanted to give the reader kind of the bottom of the story. So, Billy, at the end, when the climax is there, is he's getting his due. You know, I really wanted him to get what he deserved, because he was just a really despicable character. So, I thought, well, what if I show that scene in the beginning, because I want the reader to know, that it's coming. I want them to be, you know, really wanting that to happen. So that was kind of the first, you know, the first thinking about it. And then I thought, well, what if I show how it actually happens? So I give them the bottom, and then I start working up.
[00:25:22] Mary: And then, you know, what happened before that that could, you know, lead to that. And then what happens before that? And I just kind of keep building it so that there's a climax, a climax, a climax, and then the big climax at the end. And that's what, you know, was really kind of fun for me to do and fun for me to read because I didn't know, you know, I didn't know what was going to happen. It was, oh my God, this is just so much fun.
[00:25:48] Matty: And it really, I think, sets up that, and I know I've talked about this in previous episodes, but that desire, not just to know what happens, but how does it happen, because you've set up this situation that I think you know, the reader is wondering, well, how are we going to get from where we are to there? Because it's not obvious.
[00:26:04] Mary: Right.
[00:26:05] Matty: So it really does drive you through the book in a way that I thought was just super clever and worked really well.
[00:26:13] Mary: Good, I'm glad. I'm glad it worked for you. Yeah. And it was fun. It was really fun to do. It was not easy, but it was fun.
[00:26:21] Matty: Yeah. Well, I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm glad that you did it because I do think that it really set up that sense of, you know, I got to keep turning pages because I need to know, you know, we're working our way up to the climax and I need to know how this is all going to, to play out.
[00:26:34] Mary: Yeah, it was, it was good. It was good. It was a good writing experience.
[00:26:38] Matty: Yeah. So, any other thoughts on narrative arcs before we sign off here?
[00:26:43] Mary: No, I think, I think I covered it. I just think that the three narrative arcs, the plot, the character, and the setting, if you can
So, she helped me because I had to go back to my strength and my entry point, which is characters. When I went back to characters, I realized I had enough plot to form the story, to make the structure work. The characters were the heart of it; that's where my strength is as a writer. We all have to know where we enter the story and how not to transform ourselves into something we're not.
That was my lesson, a costly many-year lesson, but I'm glad I worked it out.
[00:23:57] Matty: I think that's also a great example of when you're picking the people from whom you're going to accept critique, be sure that your expectation, their expectation, and their expertise are aligned. There's a lot of conversation about the importance of having a professional editor look at your work if you're independently published. Still, there isn't as much conversation about vetting the person giving advice. Every person brings their preferences and expectations, and it could lead you down a path you don't want to follow, as you were describing in your case at first.
[00:24:36] Mary: I'm such a good student. Somebody I respect says, "Add another murder here," I'll do it. Even if it's not my strength and the thing I really want to do, I'll go ahead and add the murder. Then I'll say, "Oh my god, I have taken this way far from who I am." Now I have to cut back, come back to the core of the story that is me. I'm happy because the book came out the way I wanted it to, even with the missing outtakes. The book is what I want, and people comment that they don't want to end it because they don't want to leave the characters. That's what I really wanted from my readers, that they get so involved in the characters they don't want to stop reading them.
Character arc across a series
[00:25:18] Matty: The people who are very interested in characters often go the series route. Now you have book after book where you can delve into those characters' arc in a more complex way than you can in an individual book.
[00:25:34] Mary: The second of a series, Qualities of Light, was the prequel. I do have a whole outline for the third book.
[00:25:42] Matty: Nice.
[00:25:43] Mary: If I really want to do it, where Kate and Red go to find their father. The missing piece for their relationship is that the father who's betrayed them both has another family and has a daughter he's taught to fly, who is now their half-sister. That may come up for me. I don't know. I have another book coming out next year that's not about this group of characters. It's a different book, but it's also a novel. I don't know that I'll, I have to take a break for a while, then I'll come back probably and consider what do I do with the characters of "Women's Guide to Search and Rescue" and their missing father because that's like a question mark at the end of the book.
[00:26:26] Matty: It's interesting because if you decide that you don't want to pursue that, your next book comes out, you're meshed with that. Maybe that takes you into a different direction. Then you have to have made sure that if someone only reads "A Woman's Guide to Search and Rescue," or reads the prequel or any combination of those things, the character experience they have is satisfying.
[00:26:57] Mary: I remember running into that when I read Philip Pullman's books, "The Golden Compass" and all of those. They're children's fantasy books that I loved. I remember them creating the movie for "The Golden Compass," and they left it with this huge bit of hanging story. There wasn't that feeling of completion that his book had. I was so mad as a viewer and reader that the movie didn't have that sense of closure. So, those question and answer techniques that I gave earlier, if the writer can answer that initial question and at least give the reader some satisfaction that something has been wrapped up, then I think a series works really well as standalone too.
But if the ending of the book is so dependent on not resolving that question that we asked in the beginning, either I would suggest that the writer rethink the question or somehow give the reader enough material, enough change, enough sense of satisfaction, so that they don't have that frustration that I had with the "Golden Compass" movie. Otherwise, you'd lose me completely. I need to have some closure at the end of a book, even if it's part of a series.
Adjusting secondary arcs to serve the primary
[00:28:13] Matty: Thinking about this in terms of my own two series, the Ann Kinnear suspense novels are more standalone. You can read them in order, and there's some benefit to doing that, but you could pick them up in any order, and that would be fine. The Lizzie Ballard thrillers are definitely a very obvious overarching arc. There are three books out now, and the fourth one is coming out in January 2024. That will be the first of, I'm anticipating, another set of three that will have a continuing but self-contained arc.
For all the books, I only have the most general possible idea of what the overarching arc is going to be for the second trilogy. Fortunately, so far, it's worked out. I'm really pleased with the arc as represented in the first trilogy. I feel relatively confident that the arc of the second trilogy is going to work out. But I can imagine getting to book five and going, "Oh my God! I don't know what's going to happen next." There are people who plan out their 10-book series ahead of time, which I just think would be so difficult because you learn so much when you're writing the book. You might get to the end of book three of your 10-book series and say, "Oh man, this person really wouldn't do what I thought they were going to be doing in the next X number of books."
[00:29:29] Mary: I'm so behind that. I really agree. I've never been somebody who could plot that much. The writing process for me, I'm more of a pantser than a plotter, but I tend to grow the book as I write it. I don't know what these characters are going to do. Since I'm a character-based writer, it's very hard for me to say, "By the end, she's going to do this and this and this." Maybe I'll have a sense that by the end, she's going to have a certain level of satisfaction about this question being answered, like found family. Do I have a family or don't I have a family? As far as what happens to the person in getting there, that's the stuff that evolves as I write.
I didn't know Red, for instance, was a self-centered person in the beginning, but she definitely is. She doesn't think about this family that she's fleeing to and what danger she's going to put them in. The fact that I had no clue about that until I had completed the draft and then realized, oh my god, she's changed by the end. She's now aware of other people, aware of the dangers she's brought, and she's willing to make amends for that. That was a big deal for me to learn as a writer. But how do you sit down and figure that out ahead of time? Maybe if you're a plot writer, you don't have that problem. But for me, as a character writer, that was—I'm with you Matty—I just can't know that ahead of time, I have to evolve it.
[00:30:56] Matty: Yeah, I think there's probably the consideration that forms the foundation of what you want to achieve across a series, and then you can tweak the other aspects accordingly. So for me, the arc of what I anticipate will be the second Lizzy Ballard trilogy will be mainly around the relationship of the protagonist and the antagonist, having it start with them very much at odds but evolving so that in the second book, they, in some way, would have to join forces against an even bigger evil. In the third one, in some way, one of them makes the sacrifice, decides to sacrifice herself for a greater good.
Having that as even that general idea, just knowing that, I feel like, okay, that's enough. I can proceed with this series knowing that that's enough structure. And I know that because that trajectory is based on the characters, then I can adjust the plot to accommodate, as opposed to a trajectory that's based on plot, and you would adjust the characters as needed to achieve that.
[00:32:08] Mary: That's exactly it. So I adjust the plot. I create the plot based on what the characters need to learn. Exactly. And I find that very satisfying as a writer. I don't like doing it the other way, although when I studied with the thriller writer, that's what he taught me how to do, you know, basically have your plot be the most important thing.
[00:32:28] Matty: Well, I think that, yes, we're talking about it. I'm thinking that basing it on plot—and I'm saying this as someone who's basing the trajectory on character—it would be more difficult to base it on plot because you have to keep coming up with new ideas to keep it interesting for yourself, not to mention the readers. Whereas with characters, if you've created characters you really love, then I think just naturally, you want to spend more time with them and then you find ways to put them in situations that enable you to spend more time with them.
[00:32:55] Mary: Right, right. Right, exactly. And they generate the ideas of, okay, I ask myself, what does this person long for? And what have they lost? And then from those two questions, I can go into, oh, they long for this and this. Then I can create the plot points based on that longing. And then what have they lost? Then again, I have a list of things they've lost. And then I can create plot points based on, well, what if they reclaim that in some way? So the character, for me, always drives those plot points. It's fun. You know, it's a really great way to approach writing.
[00:33:29] Matty: Well, when I talk to authors who are writing especially in a series, a lot of times the conversation is around, I need to have this happen plot-wise. What can I get the characters to do to enable that to happen? And I think, oh, that seems really backward. But then I'll read the resulting book. And I'm like, well, whatever they did, it worked because this is a great story. It's a great plot. It's great characters. It's a successful result.
Whereas for myself, I hold the plot up to. So, one of my little sayings for my craft is, you need to be able to explain everything the character does by saying, "She did this because," not "She did this despite the fact that." So, she went into the dark basement when she heard the mysterious sounds because the rabbit hutch was down there, and she had to make sure the rabbit was okay. Versus, "She went downstairs despite the fact that she had just heard on the news that a crazy person had escaped from the local mental hospital and was known to hide in people's basements when he got out." One of those works and one of those doesn't, but that's because I'm looking at it from a character-centric point of view.
[00:34:41] Mary: And I think that works for me best. It's great.
The arc of setting
[00:34:45] Mary: I was just going to talk about setting for a moment because that's the third arc that people often forget about, especially writers that focus on plot. They think the setting is not really important, and they get bored by it in other books. Long descriptions are not their thing. I would propose that the setting, and you probably heard this before, is a character. One thing you can do is look at the weather and chart the weather for the different plot points that you're going to be doing and see if the weather can become a problem in those plot points. Then you have an extra element of tension that both the characters and the plot have to deal with.
So I find setting to be really a fun and tricky thing. I actually chart the setting, you know, what it looks like and the temperature and all these things by day in my novels. I find that I can really use that, not to be cliched about it like a dark and stormy night, but the idea that a setting is going to create more problems for someone might give them an injury, for instance, or might make them lose something, or they're forced to stay in a place that they want to escape from. You can't really do that completely with plot. You have to have other elements. So I just say to all those plot writers out there that hate setting, you know, this is a possible addition and a positive for your narrative arcs.
[00:36:08] Matty: Well, I like that because I have a standalone that's coming out next year, and the weather plays a very strong role in it. With both plot and character, you want that kind of ebb and flow. You want to give the reader a little rest between the more exciting or emotionally intense parts. But it's interesting with setting, I think you can have sort of a straight line. In my story, the temperature gets colder and colder over the course of, um, some of the parts of "A Woman's Guide to Search and Rescue" reminded me of this. It's a straight line from the beginning of the book to the end of the book in terms of the falling temperatures. It creates a ticking time bomb because you kind of know, oh, if I follow this trajectory, we're going to get to a problem at the end. You don't necessarily need to have those same kinds of ups and downs in a setting arc. Do you concur with that, or does that seem weird?
[00:37:04] Mary: I do. Yeah, I do. And I just wanted people to know that it could be a really positive element in creating tension. And it doesn't have to be cliched. Like yours, getting colder and colder, that's definitely going to force the characters to do stuff. That'll force the plot to be some way, you know, so it's a very important, to me, it's a very important element. So it's part of your world-building. People buy into worlds now. It's really important in literature for me, at least. The world is like something that I relate to as a character. If the world is built well and the world changes as you go forward, then I'm really hooked.
Avoiding setting cliches
[00:37:40] Matty: Yeah, I'm a big fan of probably more description of setting than I think is fashionable to advise these days. If somebody goes into the bar, I kind of want to see what the bar looks like. I'm not happy with just, "She went into the bar and sat down and ordered a beer." I think that thing about what you said about cliches is really important because I'm just buffing up a chapter at the end of my fourth Lizzie Ballard book, and it's where the big physical altercation happens. I look back on my other books, and I'm like, "Yeah, there's one that happens, like, during a sleet storm, and there's one that takes place during a big storm in an Adirondack cabin."
I'm like, I don't want to keep going back to that, so I'm having it be like a beautiful sunny spring morning. But then you say, despite the fact that it was a beautiful sunny spring morning, it was still creepy and horrible. But you don't want it to tap into a dark and stormy night. Any tips there for how people can get around relying too heavily on the dark and stormy night.
[00:38:43] Mary: I think, I'm going to follow your lead, and I'm going to say, what if you did the opposite? Because that even makes it creepier. So if it happens on a completely beatific day, and the weather isn't a factor of negatives, then that's even more, you know, what if you can play with that? I like that idea. Yeah.
[00:39:06] Matty: And you could even, I mean, it offers some nice opportunities for character development because you can say, you know, how come despite the fact that it was a beautiful balmy morning, she was still miserable, or what about it set her teeth on edge, or how come, you know, she's complaining about the sun being in her eyes when she shouldn't. The character's reaction to the non-traditional setting can be illuminating.
[00:39:29] Mary: And what if you took that another step and asked about the memory? So the character's got all this backstory, right? Things happen at certain times and certain kinds of weather, and they have memories of setting, and then you can pull the memory of that setting in. It can be something that will enhance the miserableness. So you want to make your characters as miserable as possible so they'll be forced to act, right? So mean!
[00:39:57] Matty: The things we do. Rubbing our hands together and cackling evilly.
[00:40:02] Mary: I know, it's one of the few places we feel like we have control over our world here.
[00:40:06] Matty: Yes. Mary, I took us pretty far afield. Was there anything else about narrative arcs, plot arcs, character arcs, setting arcs that you would like to cover before we wrap up?
[00:40:18] Mary: One small technique that I have suggested, and by the way, listeners can look at my YouTube channel, and I have three different storyboarding videos, tutorials there, so you can check out how storyboards are built from those YouTube channels. But the one thing that I'd recommend is, once you have a draft that's pretty solid, that you're pretty pleased with as far as the plot points, I personally take each plot point, major and minor, and put it on individual index cards or sticky notes. Then I'll put them on my wall. I have a wall in my office, and I'll try to see if there's an effect from each thing. So, I'll try to, it's not going to be, you know, I think I heard once, you don't do this happened, and then this happened, then this happened. You do because of this, this happens. So I'm looking for cause and effect.
And so I have all these plot points that I've decided, and now I'm going to see does the second plot point connect to the first one? Does the first one create the second one? Does the second one create the third one? You can check your cause and effect for your narrative arc that way really well. I find when it's all written in a manuscript and it's on my computer, I can't separate out in my mind the different plot points. This physical storyboarding on my wall really helps. You can do that again with the character arc as well to say, okay, the character makes this decision in Chapter 3, do I set that up well in the previous chapters? So, does their state of mind or state of being create that decision point? Then, does that decision point create their next change?
Basically, you're analyzing the character arc that way too. That would be another kind of technique that I've used, and I've felt very successful with it because it really catches my blind spots and my, you know, this happened, then this happened, then this happened, or the character does something, and it's not earned out. So when I get feedback from my writers group or my agent, it's like, yeah, she does this decision, but there's no reason for it. I don't believe she'd do it. So this will catch those and keep you honest, I guess.
[00:42:30] Matty: Yeah, I love that. So much fun. Well, Mary, thank you so much for this great conversation about arcs. And you've given the listeners and viewers one place where they can go to find out more information about that topic, but where can they go to find out more about you and everything you do online?
[00:42:46] Mary: marycarolmoore.com. You got the spelling of my name there, two Rs, two Ls, two Os. And on that, I also have my link to my weekly Substack newsletter, which is your weekly writing exercise, where I give these techniques in a little essay every week. So that's free, and people can sign up for that if they'd like to get a little boost to their writing every Friday. I also have my books listed on that page on my website, but they're all over the internet too. Any bookseller, you can go and look for "A Woman's Guide to Search and Rescue."
[00:43:17] Matty: Which I can highly recommend.
[00:43:19] Mary: Thank you, Matty. I love that.
[00:43:22] Matty: Thank you, Mary.
[00:00:06] Mary: Hi, great to be here again.
Meet Mary Carroll Moore
[00:00:09] Matty: Yes, it is great to have you here. And to give our listeners and viewers a little bit of background on you, Mary Carol Moore is the author of 14 books in three genres, including the Amazon bestselling novel and hot new release, "A Woman's Guide to Search and Rescue." I met Mary when I interviewed her about that book as part of my What I Learned video series. I was so intrigued; I had to read "A Woman's Guide to Search and Rescue," which was wonderful, and I can highly recommend.
It had two of the things that intrigue me either personally or vicariously—aviation. We talked about that earlier; I took flying lessons for a while, and my husband's a pilot. So the aviation aspect was fascinating. Also, my husband's the front man in a band in the Philadelphia area. So I also enjoyed the band-related aspects of "A Woman's Guide to Search and Rescue."
Mary is also the author of the Penn Faulkner-nominated novel, "Qualities of Light." She has taught storyboarding and writing craft for two decades at writing schools around the U.S., including Grub Street in Boston and the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis.
I invited Mary on the podcast to talk about narrative arcs. So let's make sure we're all coming at this from the same perspective.
How does Mary define narrative arcs?
[00:01:19] Matty: How do you define narrative arcs?
[00:01:22] Mary: It's a great question because there are different ways to define it, depending on what writing books you read or classes you take. For me, a narrative arc is the trajectory or the path through the story that the character takes—how the character evolves from the beginning of the book to the end of the book. I also use narrative arcs to refer to the evolution of setting images and plot. So, for me, the narrative arcs weave in three ways, and I think that's what we're going to be talking about today.
[00:01:55] Matty: Yeah, well, let's dive right in about what those three aspects of the arc are.
Having a visual map of your story's structure
[00:02:01] Mary: Okay. So when I've taught storyboarding at different writing schools, people come to me with the big question of structure. Many writers are confused about structure. We know how to flow things; we do NaNoWriMo or get all those words out on paper. When we come to actually analyzing the draft for whether it holds together structurally, this is often the biggest problem. When I worked as a teacher and a coach, I found that many manuscripts had a beautiful story, setting, and characters, but there weren't many solid structural elements. Readers kind of got lost. We're talking about creating a deliberate structure that you start with, and then you can go into your writing, which is flow writing or free writing, but you always have this visual map to come back to.
[00:02:55] Mary: And so, the easiest one to start with is plot. When people are used to doing all kinds of plot outlines, like "Save the Cat," and storyboards, there are just so many different ways to do plot outlines. I use a W storyboard because it has an up and down movement, and that is the thing that plots usually forget to do, like the middle. There needs to be something happening in the middle that really pulls the reader into a second reveal, a second crisis. We have the starting crisis that's usually in the beginning chapter or early in the book, and then we have a middle crisis that develops that original one, makes it even harder, worse, and then that will lead us to the place where things are resolved. A character has to face themselves or something has to change for the plot to be resolved. So that's, in a nutshell, how this particular approach to narrative arcs works. Yes.
[00:03:53] Matty: A question about that because you were saying that the plot arc is the good one to start out with. Do you find that the stumbling block that writers are facing is that they have the idea for that arc but they're forgetting about that secondary one that keeps pulling the reader through in the middle? Or is it just that it's missing, or is it just ineffectively constructed?
The triggering event that generates the crisis
[00:04:17] Mary: Well, that's a really good question. It's often missing, but if it is constructed, it doesn't tie back into the first one, so that the first one has to generate what I call the triggering event. It has to generate the crisis that runs through the first half of the book. But then there's a place in the middle of the book where things have been resolved to some extent, but something new has to come up. Some new crisis has to come up, new information. Oftentimes, this is where there's a double-crossing or a betrayal or something that you thought was true is not true, and oh my god, there's another big problem to solve. So this problem-solving has to be in, I feel, in stages. If you dump it all on the reader at the beginning, which many writers do, they think, okay, we're going to blow up a city and that will create the entire story, but it's not really true for the character part of it because characters evolve, and they might have solved that first problem, but what happens to the problem inside themselves? So having a second crisis often in the plot allows the character that evolution that you need to create the character's arc, the character's narrative arc.
[00:05:25] Matty: So what that made me think of, and I think because you mentioned blowing up the city, and I didn't think about this ahead, so listeners, bear with me, but what it made me think of was the Will Smith movie that was, I think it was called "I Am Legend," but it was at least based on the book "I Am Legend." It's where Will Smith is in the sort of post-apocalyptic world and is trying to escape the zombies. And what I thought of was the scene where, spoiler alert, his dog gets bitten by a zombie or wounded by a zombie. So now the dog is going to turn into a zombie. And that's both, I think, kind of that secondary hook that's going to keep the reader interested, but it's also very revealing of the character's personality. Is that actually an example of what you're talking about? Or is that an example of something different?
[00:06:17] Mary: No, that's a great example because what you're looking for in that second crisis is something that will reveal a deep part of the character, something that hasn't been shown yet. Because characters present a certain way, even in literature, and they think they're this way, and then something has to happen to make them actually more vulnerable, more revealed to the reader, so the reader can actually get behind them.
And this is a big part of literature today. We used to go for action stories that didn't really have to reveal any character, but then action stories, thrillers, started to reveal character, and then that started to be part of our culture as readers. We have to understand a person and who's behind this event and get to know them, and even if we don't like them, there's somebody that we are connected to by the end, and I think that point in the middle, in my particular narrative arc storyboards, that's where the reader gets to know the character. So, yes, a great example, Matty.
[00:07:14] Matty: Yeah, the example of character arc, this is an example that I think comes up each time, is the James Bond character. Like, I think if we were having this interview, I don't know, five or ten years ago, James Bond was always the example of the exception, the proof of the rule that James Bond has no character arc. Yet, I think as time went on, the screenwriters or the writers added that because I think it was something that current audiences would have been disappointed not to see.
[00:07:43] Mary: Yeah, I'm really intrigued by this. So I'm reading an older thriller that I love that's called "The Dog Stars" by Peter Heller. He's a literary thriller writer from Colorado, and he's won all sorts of awards, and he's very prolific. But this "Dog Stars" was his first book, and I was kind of preparing for this talk today with you, and I wanted to look at a book that I love and find out why I'm so invested in the character. And it turns out that he has a crisis right at that point of the mid-book, where something personal happens to him, and it causes him to make all these decisions that he wouldn't have made before. So he actually takes the risk that he had talked himself out of because he's lost something that was incredibly valuable to him.
And I thought, wow, what a great structure, you know? He's got that plot point in the middle that causes the character to face something. The end of his world, so then he has nothing to lose. He can go ahead and move forward into this huge risk, which of course creates the second half of the book and turns out really good in the end. But I think all these good writers, you know, the really good ones, you can kind of take their books and analyze them and find that second point.
[00:08:55] Matty: So I sort of took you from plot arc to character arc, but is there more you wanted to talk about with regard to the structure of the plot arc and what writers should be looking for to assess the plot arc in their own work?
How does the question posed at the beginning of the story map to the answer given at the end of the story?
[00:09:07] Mary: I think one of the best techniques I gave to my students when I was teaching was to see if there's a question asked at the beginning of the story, like, will this world be saved? You know, the blowing-up city thing. And then what kind of answer is given at the end. Yes, it's going to be saved. No, it's not going to be saved.
We're all going to colonize the new planet, whatever it is. So take those two points, the beginning and the ending point, which on the storyboard would be point one and point five because they're five points on a storyboard. And then consider point three. Take your question that you begin with, "Will this city be saved?" and see if you can twist it. What happens if this city is not saved? And then what other question would evolve from that? For instance, would we leave this city, or would we try to save it? So that there's kind of a new question asked at the center of the book. That seemed to help people, just to start with a question, figure out the answer at the end, and then break that question up so that you have a second question at the middle, and that's the thing that you can base your plot point on or your character change on.
For instance, in this Peter Heller book, we have the question seems to be, am I going to survive this terrible situation that's happened to the world? You know, what will my life be like? Will I ever find love again? Can I stand living with this person that I'm living with who's the only other survivor that I know of? And then in the middle, the question is, how will I live without this thing that I've just lost? So it becomes more personal. It's almost like there's an individual question or a limited question in the beginning and then that evolves into a more universal question in the middle. And that seemed to help my students sometimes just to think of it as first in terms of questions and answers and then a midpoint question.
[00:11:43] Matty: Yeah, I like that idea of applying sort of like the rules you learn about writing a newspaper article, the who, what, when, where, why, and how, and say, and the middle point say, well, is it a good question, how is this going to happen, or is it a good question, why is this going to happen, or to whom is it going to happen, or whatever.
[00:11:17] Mary: Yeah, that's a fantastic way to approach it. Yeah.
[00:11:20] Matty: I was talking about Alien with someone, and I was trying to apply that, I'm trying to think in Alien, because Alien seems to me to be sort of at one level, at least a very straightforward, you know, there's a monster, are we going to get away from the monster kind of plotline. And I'm trying to think if there was that moment in the middle, in the way that there was that moment with the dog in “I Am Legend.”
[00:11:43] Mary: Think about the character. Like is there a question that the character asks in the middle that's different? So, are we going to get away from the monster? But is there something that becomes more personal than just the escape? Or am I going to be able to save someone? For instance, is often people take it out of just the initial crisis into something more personal.
[00:12:08] Matty: Yeah, I guess the only thing I'm thinking of is that, and I finally remembered where I was talking about this was a patron event with Jeff Elkins, the Dialogue Doctor, that there's this romantic interest that I think was inserted late in the game. It seemed like the kind of thing that was probably slapped on there at the end because they decided they needed a romantic relationship. So there was this kind of twist that all the characters weren't equally important to save, that's kind of, you know, there were people that I think the viewer wanted more to survive the encounter with the alien than others, the captain being one when it became clear that there was this relationship between Ripley and the captain, and some of the other characters were sort of odious and you didn't really care when they got eaten up by the monster.
[00:13:00] Matty: So I keep, keep taking off on these little sidetracks. Maybe I'll keep this in just because it's fun.
[00:13:05] Mary: I think it is.
[00:13:08] Matty: Yeah, so are there other examples you can think of in addition to the Dog Stars, where there are these questions? Because I've never heard anybody talk about structuring quite this way with this question in the middle that provides the impetus for drawing people through. I think it's worth some careful examination.
How Mary inserted the twist in A WOMAN'S GUIDE TO SEARCH AND RESCUE
[00:13:26] Mary: Well, can I use my book? “The Woman's Guide to Search and Rescue”? Okay. So, this book, I had to structure really carefully because I was working with the same dilemma that I had a woman who starts off with a plane crash. She escapes from the law, and she crashes her plane, and she has to meet her estranged sister. So, I thought, okay, well, that's a great start. It all, you know, all works.
But what am I going to have in the middle? Because, she's injured and she's stuck in a cabin in a blizzard, which is the worst kind of plot point you can imagine to work out of. You know, you've got someone stuck in a room or a cabin or anything. It's really bad news for structure. So I had to figure out what would happen in the middle that would change everything. And so what I thought was, what if her sister discovers her there and she decides to first turn her in and then decides to help her.
So that, it was about the two characters coming together, and the middle of my book is a fight, basically a fight scene with the two characters. They've decided that they're not going to collaborate, they're not going to be sisters, they're not going to be family, and the sister that finds the hidden sister, so Kate is the search and rescue pilot, and Red is the one who's escaped, and so Kate finds Red on her property, endangering her own daughter, and she's got to make this huge decision about what she's going to do.
A turn from outer crisis to inner crisis
[00:14:54] Mary: So that was my second plot point. And I decided to put that kind of in the middle of the book so that there would be not just the story of the search and rescue outwardly but the search and rescue inwardly. So that is what turned it from the outer crisis of the fleeing and the crime being investigated and Red being wanted by the law into something that's more important to me in this story, which is about the unity of the two sisters and how they're going to come together. And at first, of course, they can't. So the crisis is, oh my god, Red is in danger, she's come all this way, and she can't get help. So that was the point where she lost everything.
And Kate also, in a sense, lost everything because, you know, she's been lonely all her life, and here's the chance for her to have a family, and she says no, you know, but just because of her own rules and her decision to be somebody, you know, I would never help somebody who's slightly shady, you know, suspected of a crime.
So that was kind of my example of what I could do. So that changed everything, and now if Kate's going to help Red, then all of the rest of it comes together. Suddenly, they're a team, and Kate uses all her skills. She goes out to the woods again, and she finds the missing item that will exonerate Red.
So, all of the things that happen later are the things that will actually create the rest of the story. So, not to just point at my own work, but that was an example of me struggling for years trying to figure out, well, how do I get her out of this stupid cabin in a blizzard? You know, what can I create here? Well, what if her sister finds her and then refuses to help her? So that would be like the bottom, a moment of, you know, nothing is worse than this. So I guess that would be an example.
Adjusting a plot to meet genre tropes
[00:16:45] Matty: Yeah, well, I'm glad you brought that up because I did have a question, and we're sort of giving spoilers away for lots of things, but I don't think it would deter anyone from actually getting “A Woman's Guide to Search and Rescue” based on our conversation, but one thing I was expecting that didn't happen, and it didn't lessen my enjoyment of the story, which I thought was wonderful, but did make me wonder, is that I was expecting that the, the bad guy, Cotton,
[00:17:09] Mary: Billy, Billy Cotton. Yeah, good.
[00:17:12] Matty: is, so there's the sort of flashback aspect of Red and Billy's interaction before the story takes place that sets the stage for what happens later, and then there's the altercation with Red and Billy, I think, kind of in the middle of the book, maybe a third over the way or three or something like that. But then I was expecting Billy to show up at the cabin because what I thought it was building to was going to be, the big climactic confrontation where Red was going to save her sister and her niece from Billy, who shows up in this seemingly safe place.
Mary: Well, I had that in there. I did.
[00:17:53] Matty: So can you talk a little bit about how you made the decision there?
[00:17:58] Mary: Well, I had him come back and burn the cabin down with them in it. And I thought that was great. So that was like the last, you know, big conflict scene. And, the feedback I got was, it's too much. It's, it makes it more thriller than women's lit. So I'm really interested in the women relationships in this book. I think that the whole idea of women heroes and found family and all of those aspects, those are the things that really do it for me.
The thriller part, I'm not really a thriller writer. So my feedback was, you know, you've got too many murders, too many things happening here and you've got to tone it down and we don't really need Billy again. We really are invested in the sisters. So I reluctantly took that out and that's going to be an outtake. I'm going to surely do something with it. Cause it was a fabulous scene. And, Alex ends up shooting Billy and he dies in the cabin fire. And I thought, oh, this is great.
[00:18:55] Matty: So he doesn't actually burn them with them in it, and then they all die except Billy.
[00:18:58] Mary: No, he sets it on fire and they, and Red is alert and found, finds him and goes out and tries to talk him into, you know, anyway, there's a whole thing where she manages to get him into the cabin and then she and Alex escape and he's drunk and he's basically a mess and he lights the cabin on fire and burns in it.
[00:22:38] Mary: So that was when I was, you know, trying to figure out how to simplify. I had actually given the manuscript to a beta reader, who said, you know, it was really great, but she said, I had to go to work the next day, and I couldn't put it down. So you know, you've got to fix that. And that was the feedback I was looking for. I thought, okay, I really want to fix that.
I really want to fix it so that you could read it in three days and really enjoy it. And so that was, you know, looking at the plot and cutting things out and then, and then making sure that the character was a continuous evolution. And that was, it was hard. It was really hard because the book was really all over the place. It was a mess.
And so I had to go back and cut and cut and cut. And then the editor, when I got the editor that I hired to help me with the plot, she suggested a couple of scenes in the middle, that were, where the characters were sitting around, and she just suggested I take them out because they weren't really evolving the plot.
They were just kind of interesting but a side road. And, that was a big revelation for me, you know, how plot can be, and it was fascinating because it really made the book much tighter.
[00:23:43] Matty: Yeah. So I'm also curious about the decision to tell the story out of chronological order because there's the initial plane crash that sort of sets everything in motion, but then you cut to what is the, you know, the big climactic confrontation with Billy before it actually happens, and then it happens.
And then there's the interaction between, Red and Billy before the story started. Can you talk a little bit about how you decided to structure it that way?
Playing with timeline and tension
[00:24:11] Mary: Oh, I love playing with time. I do. I do it in all my books. So that's a really good point. I think, I think that, I don't know, it was probably five or six years ago. I went to see a play in New York and it was called Constellations. And it was the same, the same thing, but it was so beautifully done.
I just remember thinking, you know, I've got to try this sometime because what they did was play with the timeline and the two characters met each other over and over again. It was just a couple, but they met each other over and over again in different times and different places, different situations. So I really wanted to try that.
And in this book, it really worked because I wanted to give the reader kind of the bottom of the story. So, Billy, at the end, when the climax is there, is he's getting his due. You know, I really wanted him to get what he deserved, because he was just a really despicable character. So, I thought, well, what if I show that scene in the beginning, because I want the reader to know, that it's coming. I want them to be, you know, really wanting that to happen. So that was kind of the first, you know, the first thinking about it. And then I thought, well, what if I show how it actually happens? So I give them the bottom, and then I start working up.
[00:25:22] Mary: And then, you know, what happened before that that could, you know, lead to that. And then what happens before that? And I just kind of keep building it so that there's a climax, a climax, a climax, and then the big climax at the end. And that's what, you know, was really kind of fun for me to do and fun for me to read because I didn't know, you know, I didn't know what was going to happen. It was, oh my God, this is just so much fun.
[00:25:48] Matty: And it really, I think, sets up that, and I know I've talked about this in previous episodes, but that desire, not just to know what happens, but how does it happen, because you've set up this situation that I think you know, the reader is wondering, well, how are we going to get from where we are to there? Because it's not obvious.
[00:26:04] Mary: Right.
[00:26:05] Matty: So it really does drive you through the book in a way that I thought was just super clever and worked really well.
[00:26:13] Mary: Good, I'm glad. I'm glad it worked for you. Yeah. And it was fun. It was really fun to do. It was not easy, but it was fun.
[00:26:21] Matty: Yeah. Well, I'm, I'm, yeah, I'm glad that you did it because I do think that it really set up that sense of, you know, I got to keep turning pages because I need to know, you know, we're working our way up to the climax and I need to know how this is all going to, to play out.
[00:26:34] Mary: Yeah, it was, it was good. It was good. It was a good writing experience.
[00:26:38] Matty: Yeah. So, any other thoughts on narrative arcs before we sign off here?
[00:26:43] Mary: No, I think, I think I covered it. I just think that the three narrative arcs, the plot, the character, and the setting, if you can
So, she helped me because I had to go back to my strength and my entry point, which is characters. When I went back to characters, I realized I had enough plot to form the story, to make the structure work. The characters were the heart of it; that's where my strength is as a writer. We all have to know where we enter the story and how not to transform ourselves into something we're not.
That was my lesson, a costly many-year lesson, but I'm glad I worked it out.
[00:23:57] Matty: I think that's also a great example of when you're picking the people from whom you're going to accept critique, be sure that your expectation, their expectation, and their expertise are aligned. There's a lot of conversation about the importance of having a professional editor look at your work if you're independently published. Still, there isn't as much conversation about vetting the person giving advice. Every person brings their preferences and expectations, and it could lead you down a path you don't want to follow, as you were describing in your case at first.
[00:24:36] Mary: I'm such a good student. Somebody I respect says, "Add another murder here," I'll do it. Even if it's not my strength and the thing I really want to do, I'll go ahead and add the murder. Then I'll say, "Oh my god, I have taken this way far from who I am." Now I have to cut back, come back to the core of the story that is me. I'm happy because the book came out the way I wanted it to, even with the missing outtakes. The book is what I want, and people comment that they don't want to end it because they don't want to leave the characters. That's what I really wanted from my readers, that they get so involved in the characters they don't want to stop reading them.
Character arc across a series
[00:25:18] Matty: The people who are very interested in characters often go the series route. Now you have book after book where you can delve into those characters' arc in a more complex way than you can in an individual book.
[00:25:34] Mary: The second of a series, Qualities of Light, was the prequel. I do have a whole outline for the third book.
[00:25:42] Matty: Nice.
[00:25:43] Mary: If I really want to do it, where Kate and Red go to find their father. The missing piece for their relationship is that the father who's betrayed them both has another family and has a daughter he's taught to fly, who is now their half-sister. That may come up for me. I don't know. I have another book coming out next year that's not about this group of characters. It's a different book, but it's also a novel. I don't know that I'll, I have to take a break for a while, then I'll come back probably and consider what do I do with the characters of "Women's Guide to Search and Rescue" and their missing father because that's like a question mark at the end of the book.
[00:26:26] Matty: It's interesting because if you decide that you don't want to pursue that, your next book comes out, you're meshed with that. Maybe that takes you into a different direction. Then you have to have made sure that if someone only reads "A Woman's Guide to Search and Rescue," or reads the prequel or any combination of those things, the character experience they have is satisfying.
[00:26:57] Mary: I remember running into that when I read Philip Pullman's books, "The Golden Compass" and all of those. They're children's fantasy books that I loved. I remember them creating the movie for "The Golden Compass," and they left it with this huge bit of hanging story. There wasn't that feeling of completion that his book had. I was so mad as a viewer and reader that the movie didn't have that sense of closure. So, those question and answer techniques that I gave earlier, if the writer can answer that initial question and at least give the reader some satisfaction that something has been wrapped up, then I think a series works really well as standalone too.
But if the ending of the book is so dependent on not resolving that question that we asked in the beginning, either I would suggest that the writer rethink the question or somehow give the reader enough material, enough change, enough sense of satisfaction, so that they don't have that frustration that I had with the "Golden Compass" movie. Otherwise, you'd lose me completely. I need to have some closure at the end of a book, even if it's part of a series.
Adjusting secondary arcs to serve the primary
[00:28:13] Matty: Thinking about this in terms of my own two series, the Ann Kinnear suspense novels are more standalone. You can read them in order, and there's some benefit to doing that, but you could pick them up in any order, and that would be fine. The Lizzie Ballard thrillers are definitely a very obvious overarching arc. There are three books out now, and the fourth one is coming out in January 2024. That will be the first of, I'm anticipating, another set of three that will have a continuing but self-contained arc.
For all the books, I only have the most general possible idea of what the overarching arc is going to be for the second trilogy. Fortunately, so far, it's worked out. I'm really pleased with the arc as represented in the first trilogy. I feel relatively confident that the arc of the second trilogy is going to work out. But I can imagine getting to book five and going, "Oh my God! I don't know what's going to happen next." There are people who plan out their 10-book series ahead of time, which I just think would be so difficult because you learn so much when you're writing the book. You might get to the end of book three of your 10-book series and say, "Oh man, this person really wouldn't do what I thought they were going to be doing in the next X number of books."
[00:29:29] Mary: I'm so behind that. I really agree. I've never been somebody who could plot that much. The writing process for me, I'm more of a pantser than a plotter, but I tend to grow the book as I write it. I don't know what these characters are going to do. Since I'm a character-based writer, it's very hard for me to say, "By the end, she's going to do this and this and this." Maybe I'll have a sense that by the end, she's going to have a certain level of satisfaction about this question being answered, like found family. Do I have a family or don't I have a family? As far as what happens to the person in getting there, that's the stuff that evolves as I write.
I didn't know Red, for instance, was a self-centered person in the beginning, but she definitely is. She doesn't think about this family that she's fleeing to and what danger she's going to put them in. The fact that I had no clue about that until I had completed the draft and then realized, oh my god, she's changed by the end. She's now aware of other people, aware of the dangers she's brought, and she's willing to make amends for that. That was a big deal for me to learn as a writer. But how do you sit down and figure that out ahead of time? Maybe if you're a plot writer, you don't have that problem. But for me, as a character writer, that was—I'm with you Matty—I just can't know that ahead of time, I have to evolve it.
[00:30:56] Matty: Yeah, I think there's probably the consideration that forms the foundation of what you want to achieve across a series, and then you can tweak the other aspects accordingly. So for me, the arc of what I anticipate will be the second Lizzy Ballard trilogy will be mainly around the relationship of the protagonist and the antagonist, having it start with them very much at odds but evolving so that in the second book, they, in some way, would have to join forces against an even bigger evil. In the third one, in some way, one of them makes the sacrifice, decides to sacrifice herself for a greater good.
Having that as even that general idea, just knowing that, I feel like, okay, that's enough. I can proceed with this series knowing that that's enough structure. And I know that because that trajectory is based on the characters, then I can adjust the plot to accommodate, as opposed to a trajectory that's based on plot, and you would adjust the characters as needed to achieve that.
[00:32:08] Mary: That's exactly it. So I adjust the plot. I create the plot based on what the characters need to learn. Exactly. And I find that very satisfying as a writer. I don't like doing it the other way, although when I studied with the thriller writer, that's what he taught me how to do, you know, basically have your plot be the most important thing.
[00:32:28] Matty: Well, I think that, yes, we're talking about it. I'm thinking that basing it on plot—and I'm saying this as someone who's basing the trajectory on character—it would be more difficult to base it on plot because you have to keep coming up with new ideas to keep it interesting for yourself, not to mention the readers. Whereas with characters, if you've created characters you really love, then I think just naturally, you want to spend more time with them and then you find ways to put them in situations that enable you to spend more time with them.
[00:32:55] Mary: Right, right. Right, exactly. And they generate the ideas of, okay, I ask myself, what does this person long for? And what have they lost? And then from those two questions, I can go into, oh, they long for this and this. Then I can create the plot points based on that longing. And then what have they lost? Then again, I have a list of things they've lost. And then I can create plot points based on, well, what if they reclaim that in some way? So the character, for me, always drives those plot points. It's fun. You know, it's a really great way to approach writing.
[00:33:29] Matty: Well, when I talk to authors who are writing especially in a series, a lot of times the conversation is around, I need to have this happen plot-wise. What can I get the characters to do to enable that to happen? And I think, oh, that seems really backward. But then I'll read the resulting book. And I'm like, well, whatever they did, it worked because this is a great story. It's a great plot. It's great characters. It's a successful result.
Whereas for myself, I hold the plot up to. So, one of my little sayings for my craft is, you need to be able to explain everything the character does by saying, "She did this because," not "She did this despite the fact that." So, she went into the dark basement when she heard the mysterious sounds because the rabbit hutch was down there, and she had to make sure the rabbit was okay. Versus, "She went downstairs despite the fact that she had just heard on the news that a crazy person had escaped from the local mental hospital and was known to hide in people's basements when he got out." One of those works and one of those doesn't, but that's because I'm looking at it from a character-centric point of view.
[00:34:41] Mary: And I think that works for me best. It's great.
The arc of setting
[00:34:45] Mary: I was just going to talk about setting for a moment because that's the third arc that people often forget about, especially writers that focus on plot. They think the setting is not really important, and they get bored by it in other books. Long descriptions are not their thing. I would propose that the setting, and you probably heard this before, is a character. One thing you can do is look at the weather and chart the weather for the different plot points that you're going to be doing and see if the weather can become a problem in those plot points. Then you have an extra element of tension that both the characters and the plot have to deal with.
So I find setting to be really a fun and tricky thing. I actually chart the setting, you know, what it looks like and the temperature and all these things by day in my novels. I find that I can really use that, not to be cliched about it like a dark and stormy night, but the idea that a setting is going to create more problems for someone might give them an injury, for instance, or might make them lose something, or they're forced to stay in a place that they want to escape from. You can't really do that completely with plot. You have to have other elements. So I just say to all those plot writers out there that hate setting, you know, this is a possible addition and a positive for your narrative arcs.
[00:36:08] Matty: Well, I like that because I have a standalone that's coming out next year, and the weather plays a very strong role in it. With both plot and character, you want that kind of ebb and flow. You want to give the reader a little rest between the more exciting or emotionally intense parts. But it's interesting with setting, I think you can have sort of a straight line. In my story, the temperature gets colder and colder over the course of, um, some of the parts of "A Woman's Guide to Search and Rescue" reminded me of this. It's a straight line from the beginning of the book to the end of the book in terms of the falling temperatures. It creates a ticking time bomb because you kind of know, oh, if I follow this trajectory, we're going to get to a problem at the end. You don't necessarily need to have those same kinds of ups and downs in a setting arc. Do you concur with that, or does that seem weird?
[00:37:04] Mary: I do. Yeah, I do. And I just wanted people to know that it could be a really positive element in creating tension. And it doesn't have to be cliched. Like yours, getting colder and colder, that's definitely going to force the characters to do stuff. That'll force the plot to be some way, you know, so it's a very important, to me, it's a very important element. So it's part of your world-building. People buy into worlds now. It's really important in literature for me, at least. The world is like something that I relate to as a character. If the world is built well and the world changes as you go forward, then I'm really hooked.
Avoiding setting cliches
[00:37:40] Matty: Yeah, I'm a big fan of probably more description of setting than I think is fashionable to advise these days. If somebody goes into the bar, I kind of want to see what the bar looks like. I'm not happy with just, "She went into the bar and sat down and ordered a beer." I think that thing about what you said about cliches is really important because I'm just buffing up a chapter at the end of my fourth Lizzie Ballard book, and it's where the big physical altercation happens. I look back on my other books, and I'm like, "Yeah, there's one that happens, like, during a sleet storm, and there's one that takes place during a big storm in an Adirondack cabin."
I'm like, I don't want to keep going back to that, so I'm having it be like a beautiful sunny spring morning. But then you say, despite the fact that it was a beautiful sunny spring morning, it was still creepy and horrible. But you don't want it to tap into a dark and stormy night. Any tips there for how people can get around relying too heavily on the dark and stormy night.
[00:38:43] Mary: I think, I'm going to follow your lead, and I'm going to say, what if you did the opposite? Because that even makes it creepier. So if it happens on a completely beatific day, and the weather isn't a factor of negatives, then that's even more, you know, what if you can play with that? I like that idea. Yeah.
[00:39:06] Matty: And you could even, I mean, it offers some nice opportunities for character development because you can say, you know, how come despite the fact that it was a beautiful balmy morning, she was still miserable, or what about it set her teeth on edge, or how come, you know, she's complaining about the sun being in her eyes when she shouldn't. The character's reaction to the non-traditional setting can be illuminating.
[00:39:29] Mary: And what if you took that another step and asked about the memory? So the character's got all this backstory, right? Things happen at certain times and certain kinds of weather, and they have memories of setting, and then you can pull the memory of that setting in. It can be something that will enhance the miserableness. So you want to make your characters as miserable as possible so they'll be forced to act, right? So mean!
[00:39:57] Matty: The things we do. Rubbing our hands together and cackling evilly.
[00:40:02] Mary: I know, it's one of the few places we feel like we have control over our world here.
[00:40:06] Matty: Yes. Mary, I took us pretty far afield. Was there anything else about narrative arcs, plot arcs, character arcs, setting arcs that you would like to cover before we wrap up?
[00:40:18] Mary: One small technique that I have suggested, and by the way, listeners can look at my YouTube channel, and I have three different storyboarding videos, tutorials there, so you can check out how storyboards are built from those YouTube channels. But the one thing that I'd recommend is, once you have a draft that's pretty solid, that you're pretty pleased with as far as the plot points, I personally take each plot point, major and minor, and put it on individual index cards or sticky notes. Then I'll put them on my wall. I have a wall in my office, and I'll try to see if there's an effect from each thing. So, I'll try to, it's not going to be, you know, I think I heard once, you don't do this happened, and then this happened, then this happened. You do because of this, this happens. So I'm looking for cause and effect.
And so I have all these plot points that I've decided, and now I'm going to see does the second plot point connect to the first one? Does the first one create the second one? Does the second one create the third one? You can check your cause and effect for your narrative arc that way really well. I find when it's all written in a manuscript and it's on my computer, I can't separate out in my mind the different plot points. This physical storyboarding on my wall really helps. You can do that again with the character arc as well to say, okay, the character makes this decision in Chapter 3, do I set that up well in the previous chapters? So, does their state of mind or state of being create that decision point? Then, does that decision point create their next change?
Basically, you're analyzing the character arc that way too. That would be another kind of technique that I've used, and I've felt very successful with it because it really catches my blind spots and my, you know, this happened, then this happened, then this happened, or the character does something, and it's not earned out. So when I get feedback from my writers group or my agent, it's like, yeah, she does this decision, but there's no reason for it. I don't believe she'd do it. So this will catch those and keep you honest, I guess.
[00:42:30] Matty: Yeah, I love that. So much fun. Well, Mary, thank you so much for this great conversation about arcs. And you've given the listeners and viewers one place where they can go to find out more information about that topic, but where can they go to find out more about you and everything you do online?
[00:42:46] Mary: marycarolmoore.com. You got the spelling of my name there, two Rs, two Ls, two Os. And on that, I also have my link to my weekly Substack newsletter, which is your weekly writing exercise, where I give these techniques in a little essay every week. So that's free, and people can sign up for that if they'd like to get a little boost to their writing every Friday. I also have my books listed on that page on my website, but they're all over the internet too. Any bookseller, you can go and look for "A Woman's Guide to Search and Rescue."
[00:43:17] Matty: Which I can highly recommend.
[00:43:19] Mary: Thank you, Matty. I love that.
[00:43:22] Matty: Thank you, Mary.
