master plots exclusive
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Master Plots ExclusiveTRANSCRIPT
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from 20 Master Plots by Ronald Tobias
CHECKLISTS
Master Plot 1: Quest
Master Plot 2:Adventure
Master Plot 3:Pursuit
Master Plot 4:Rescue
Master Plot 5:Escape
Master Plot 6:Revenge
Master Plot 7:Te Riddle
Master Plot 8:Rivalry
Master Plot 9: Underdog
Master Plot 10:emptation
Master Plot 11:Metamorphosis
Master Plot 12:ransormation
Master Plot 13:Maturation
Master Plot 14:Love
Master Plot 15:Forbidden Love
Master Plot 16:Sacrifice
Master Plot 17:Discovery
Master Plot 18:Wretched Excess
Master Plots 19 & 20: Ascension
And Descension
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Master Plot 1: Quest
1. A quest plot should be about a search or a person, place, or
thing; develop a close parallel between your protagonists in-
tent and motivation and the object hes trying to find.
2. Your plot should move around a lot, visiting many people
and places. But dont just move your character around as the
wind blows. Movement should be orchestrated according to
your plan o cause and effect. (You can make the journey seemlike theres nothing guiding itmaking it seem casualbut
in act it is causal.)
3. Consider bringing your plot ull circle geographically. Te
protagonist requently ends up in the same place where she
started.
4. Make your character substantially different at the end o thestory as a result o her quest. Tis plot is about the character
who makes the search, not about the object o the search it-
sel. Your character is in the process o changing during the
course o the story. What or who is she becoming?
5. Te object o the journey is wisdom, which takes the orm o
sel-realization or the hero. Ofentimes this is the process o
maturation. It may be about a child who learns the lessons oadulthood, but it also may be about an adult who learns the
lessons o lie.
6. Your first act should include a motivating incident, which
initiates your heros actual search. Dont just launch into a
quest; make sure your readers understand whyyour charac-
ter wants to go on the quest.
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7. Your hero should have at least one traveling companion. He
must have interactions with other characters to keep the story
rom becoming too abstract or too interior. Your hero needs
someone to bounce ideas off o, someone to argue with.
8. Consider including a helpul character.
9. Your last act should include your characters revelation, which
occurs either afer giving up the search or afer successully
concluding it.
10. What your character discovers is usually different rom what
he originally sought.
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Master Plot 2: adventure
1. Te ocus o your story should be on the journey more than
on the person making the journey.
2. Your story should concern a oray into the world, to new and
strange places and events.
3. Your hero goes in search o ortune; it is never ound at
home.
4. Your hero should be motivated by someone or something to
begin the adventure.
5. Te events in each o your acts depend on the same chain o
cause-and-effect relationships that motivates your hero at the
beginning.
6. Your hero doesnt necessarily have to change in any mean-ingul way by the end o the story.
7. Adventures ofen include romance.
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Master Plot 3:Pursuit
1. In the pursuit plot, the chase is more important than the peo-
ple who take part in it.
2. Make sure theres a real danger o the pursued getting
caught.
3. Your pursuer should have a reasonable chance o catching the
pursued; he may even capture the pursued momentarily.
4. Rely heavily on physical action.
5. Your story and your characters should be stimulating, engag-
ing, and unique.
6. Develop your characters and situations against type in order
to avoid clichs.
7. Keep your situations as geographically confined as possible;
the smaller the area or the chase, the greater the tension.
8. Te first dramatic phase should have three stages: a) establish
the ground rules or the chase, b) establish the stakes, and c)
start the race with a motivating incident.
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Master Plot 4:rescue
1. Te rescue plot relies more on action than on the develop-
ment o characterization.
2. Your character triangle should consist o a hero, a villain, and
a victim. Te hero should rescue the victim rom the villain.
3. Te moral argument o the rescue plot tends to be black and
white.
4. Te ocus o your story should be on the heros pursuit o the
villain.
5. Your hero should go out into the world to pursue the villain,
and usually must contend with the villain on the villains
tur.
6. Your hero should be defined by her relationship to the vil-lain.
7. Use your antagonist as a device whose purpose is to deprive
the hero o what he believes is rightully his.
8. Make sure the antagonist constantly intereres with the heros
progress.
9. Te victim is generally the weakest o the three characters andserves mainly as a mechanism to orce the hero to conront
the antagonist.
10. Develop the three dramatic phases o separation, pursuit, and
conrontation and reunion.
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Master Plot 5:escaPe
1. Escape is always literal. Your hero should be confined against
his will (ofen unjustly) and wants to escape.
2. Te moral argument o your plot should be black and white.
3. Your hero should be the victim (as opposed to the rescue plot,
in which the hero saves the victim).
4. Your first dramatic phase deals with the heros imprisonmentand any initial attempts at escape, which ail.
5. Your second dramatic phase deals with the heros plans or
escape. Tese plans are almost always thwarted.
6. Your third dramatic phase deals with the actual escape.
7. Te antagonist has control o the hero during the first two
dramatic phases; the hero gains control in the last dramatic
phase.
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Master Plot 6:revenge
1. Your protagonist seeks retaliation against the antagonist or
a real or imagined injury.
2. Most (but not all) revenge plots ocus more on the act o the
revenge than on a meaningul examination o the characters
motives.
3. Te heros justice is wild, vigilante justice that usually goes
outside the limits o the law.
4. Revenge plots tend to manipulate the eelings o the reader
by avenging the injustices o the world by a man or woman
o action who is orced to act by events when the institutions
that normally deal with these problems prove inadequate.
5. Your hero should have moral justification or vengeance.
6. Your heros vengeance may equal but may not exceed the o-
ense perpetrated against the hero (the punishment must fit
the crime).
7. Your hero first should try to deal with the offense in tradi-
tional ways, such as relying on the policean effort that usu-
ally ails.
8. Te first dramatic phase establishes the heros normal lie;
then the antagonist intereres with it by committing a crime.
Make the audience understand the ull impact o the crime
against the hero, and what it costs both physically and emo-
tionally.
Your hero then gets no satisaction by going through o-
ficial channels and realizes he must pursue his own cause ihe wants to avenge the crime.
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9. Te second dramatic phase includes your hero making plans
or revenge and then pursuing the antagonist.
Your antagonist may elude the heros vengeance either by
chance or design. Tis act usually pits the two opposing char-
acters against each other.
10. Te last dramatic phase includes the conrontation between
your hero and antagonist. Ofen the heros plans go awry,
orcing him to improvise. Either the hero succeeds or ails
in his attempts. In contemporary revenge plots, the hero usu-ally doesnt pay much o an emotional price or the revenge.
Tis allows the action to become cathartic or the audience.
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Master Plot 7:the riddle
1. he core o your riddle should be cleverness: hiding that
which is in plain sight.
2. Te tension o your riddle should come rom the conflict be-
tween what happens as opposed to what seems to have hap-
pened.
3. Te riddle challenges the reader to solve it beore the protago-
nist does.
4. Te answer to your riddle should always be in plain view
without being obvious.
5. Te first dramatic phase should consist o the generalities o
the riddle (persons, places, events).
6. Te second dramatic phase should consist o the specificso the riddle (how persons, places, and events relate to each
other in detail).
7. Te third dramatic phase should consist o the riddles solu-
tion, explaining the motives o the antagonist(s) and the real
sequence o events (as opposed to what seemed to have hap-
pened).
8. Decide on your audience.
9. Choose between an open-ended and a close-ended structure.
(Open-ended riddles have no clear answer; close-ended ones
do).
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Master Plot 8:rivalry
1. Te source o your conflict should come as a result o an ir-
resistible orce meeting an immovable object.
2. Te nature o your rivalry should be the struggle or power
between the protagonist and the antagonist.
3. Te adversaries should be equally matched.
4. Although their strengths neednt match exactly, one rivalshould have compensating strengths to match the other.
5. Begin your story at the point o initial conflict, briefly dem-
onstrating the status quo beore the conflict begins.
6. Start your action by having the antagonist instigate against
the will o the protagonist. Tis is the catalyst scene.
7. Te struggle between your rivals should be a struggle on the
characters power curves. One is usually inversely propor-
tional to the other: As the antagonist rises on the power curve,
the protagonist alls.
8. Have your antagonist gain superiority over your protagonist
in the first dramatic phase. Te protagonist usually suffers
the actions o the antagonist and so is usually at a disadvan-tage.
9. Te sides are usually clarified by the moral issues involved.
10. Te second dramatic phase reverses the protagonists descent
on the power curve through a reversal o ortune.
11. Te antagonist is ofen aware o the protagonists empower-
ment.
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12. Te protagonist ofen reaches a point o parity on the power
curve beore a challenge is possible.
13. Te third dramatic phase deals with the final conrontation
between rivals.
14. Afer resolution, the protagonist restores order or himsel
and his world.
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Master Plot 9: underdog
1. Te underdog plot is similar to the rivalry plot except that
the protagonist is not matched equally against the antago-
nist. Te antagonist, which may be a person, place, or thing
(such as a bureaucracy), clearly has much greater power than
the protagonist.
2. Te dramatic phases are similar to the rivalry plot as it ol-
lows the power curves o the characters.
3. Te underdog usually (but not always) overcomes his oppo-
sition.
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Master Plot 10:teMPtation
1. Te temptation plot is a character plot. It examines the mo-
tives, needs, and impulses o human character.
2. Your temptation plot should depend largely on morality and
the effects o giving in to temptation. By the end o the story,
the character should have moved rom a lower moral plane
(in which she gives in to temptation) to a higher moral plane
as a result o learning the sometimes harsh lessons o givingin to temptation.
3. Te conflict o your plot should be interior and take place
within the protagonist, although it has exterior maniesta-
tions in the action. Te conflict should result rom the pro-
tagonists inner turmoila result o knowing what she should
do, and then not doing it.
4. Te first dramatic phase should establish the nature o the
protagonist first, ollowed by the antagonist (i there is one).
5. Next, introduce the nature o the temptation, establish its e-
ect on the protagonist, and show how the protagonist strug-
gles over her decision.
6. Te protagonist then gives in to the temptation. Tere maybe some short-term gratification.
7. Te protagonist ofen will rationalize her decision to yield to
temptation.
8. Te protagonist also may go through a period o denial afer
yielding to the temptation.
9. Te second dramatic phase should reflect the effects o yield-ing to the temptation. Short-term benefits sour and the nega-
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tive side suraces. Te bill starts to come due or making the
wrong decision.
10. Te protagonist should try to find a way to escape responsi-
bility and punishment or her act.
11. Te negative effects o the protagonists actions should re-
verberate with increasing intensity in the second dramatic
phase.
12. Te third dramatic phase should resolve the protagonistsinternal conflicts. Te story ends with atonement, reconcili-
ation, and orgiveness.
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Master Plot 11:MetaMorPhosis
1. Te metamorphosis is usually the result o a curse.
2. Te cure or the curse is generally love.
3. Te orms o love include love o parent or a child, a woman
or a man (or vice versa), people or each other, or or the love
o God.
4. Te metamorph is usually cast as the protagonist.
5. Te point o the plot is to show the process o transormation
back to humanity.
6. Metamorphosis is a character plot; consequently, we care
more about the nature o the metamorph than his actions.
7. Te metamorph is an innately sad character.
8. Te metamorphs lie is usually bound by rituals and prohi-
bitions.
9. Te metamorph usually wants to find a way out o his pre-
dicament.
10. Tere is usually a way out o that predicament, which is called
release. 11. Te terms o the release are almost always carried out by the
antagonist.
12. I the curse can be reversed by the antagonist perorming cer-
tain acts, the protagonist cannot either hurry or explain the
events.
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13. In the first dramatic phase, the metamorph usually cant ex-
plain the reasons or his curse. We see him in the state o his
curse.
14. Your story should begin at the point prior to the resolution
o the curse (release).
15. Te antagonist should act as the catalyst that propels the pro-
tagonist toward release.
16. Te antagonist ofen starts out as the intended victim butends up as the chosen one.
17. Te second dramatic phase should concentrate on the na-
ture o evolving relationships between the antagonist and the
metamorph.
18. Te characters will generally move toward each other emo-
tionally.
19. In the third dramatic phase, the terms o release should
be ulfilled and your protagonist should be reed rom the
curse. Te metamorph may either revert to his original state
or die.
20. Te reader should learn the reasons or the curse and its root
causes.
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Master Plot 12:transforMation
1. Te plot o transormation should deal with the process o
change as the protagonist journeys through one o the many
stages o lie.
2. Te plot should isolate a portion o the protagonists lie that
represents the period o change, moving rom one significant
character state to another.
3. Te story should concentrate on the nature o change and how
it affects the protagonist rom start to end o the experience.
4. Te first dramatic phase should relate the transorming in-
cident that propels the antagonist into a crisis, which starts
the process o change.
5. Te second dramatic phase generally should depict the e-
ects o the transormation. Since this plot is about character,
the story will concentrate on the protagonists sel-examina-
tion.
6. Te third dramatic phase should contain a clariying inci-
dent, which represents the final stage o the transormation.
Te character understands the true nature o his experience
and how it has affected him. Generally this is the point o thestory at which true growth and understanding occur.
7. Ofen the price o wisdom is a certain sadness.
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Master Plot 13:Maturation
1. Create a protagonist who is on the cusp o adulthood, whose
goals are either conused or not yet clarified.
2. Make sure the audience understands who the character is and
how she eels and thinks beore an event occurs that begins
the process o change.
3. Contrast your protagonists naive lie (childhood) against the
reality o an unprotected lie (adulthood).
4. Focus your story on your protagonists moral and psychologi-
cal growth.
5. Once youve established your protagonist as she was beore
the change, create an incident that challenges her belies and
her understanding o how the world works.
6. Does your character reject or accept change? Perhaps both?
Does she resist the lesson? How does she act?
7. Show your protagonist undergoing the process o change. It
should be gradual, not sudden.
8. Make sure your young protagonist is convincing; dont give
her adult values and perceptions until she is ready to portraythem.
9. Dont try to accomplish adulthood all at once. Small lessons
ofen represent major upheavals in the process o growing
up.
10. Decide at what psychological price this lesson comes, and es-
tablish how your protagonist copes with it.
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Master Plot 14:love
1. Te prospect o love should always be met with a major ob-
stacle. Your characters may want it, but they cant have it or
any variety o reasons. At least not right away.
2. Te lovers are usually ill-suited in some way. Tey may come
rom different social classes (beauty queen/nerd; Montague
and Capulet) or they may be physically unequal (one is blind
or handicapped).
3. Te first attempt to solve the obstacle is almost always thwart-
ed. Success doesnt come easily. Love must be proven by dedi-
cation and stick-to-it-iveness.
4. As one observer once put it, love usually consists o one per-
son offering the kiss and the other offering the cheek, mean-
ing one lover is more aggressive in seeking love than the other.Te aggressive partner is the seeker, who completes the ma-
jority o the action. Te passive partner (who may want love
just as much) stil l waits or the aggressive partner to over-
come the obstacles. Either role can be played by either sex.
5. Love stories dont need to have happy endings. I you try to
orce a happy ending on a love story that clearly doesnt de-
serve one, your audience will reuse it. rue, Hollywood pre-ers happy endings, but some o the worlds best love stories
(Anna Karenina, Madame Bovary, Heloise and Abelard) are
very sad.
6. Concentrate on your main characters to make them appeal-
ing and convincing. Avoid the stereotypical lovers. Make your
characters and their circumstances unique and interesting.Love is one o the hardest subjects to write about because its
been written about so ofen, but that doesnt mean it cant be
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done well. You will have to eel deeply or your characters,
though. I you dont, neither will your readers.
7. Emotion is an important element in writing about love. Not
only should you be convincing, but you should develop the
ull range o eelings: ear, loathing, attraction, disappoint-
ment, reunion, consummation, etc. Love has many eelings
associated with it and you should be prepared to develop
them according to the needs o your plot.
8. Understand the role o sentiment and sentimentality in your
writing and decide which is better or your story. I youre
writing a ormula romance, you may want to use the tricks o
sentimentality. I youre trying to write a one-o-a-kind love
story, you will want to avoid sentimentality and rely on true
sentiment in your characters eelings.
9. ake your lovers through the ull ordeal o love. Make surethey are tested (individually and collectively) and that they
finally deserve the love they seek. Love is earned; it is not a
gif. Love untested is not true love.
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Master Plot 15:forbidden love
1. Forbidden love is any love that goes against the conventions o
society, so there is usually either an explicit or implicit orce
exerted against the lovers.
2. Te lovers ignore social convention and pursue their hearts,
usually with disastrous results.
3. Adultery is the most common orm o orbidden love. Te
adulterer may either be the protagonist or antagonist, de-
pending on the nature o the story. Te same is true or the
offended spouse.
4. Te first dramatic phase should define the relationship be-
tween partners and phrase it in its social context. What are
the taboos that they have broken? How do they handle it
themselves? How do the people around them handle it? Arethe lovers moonstruck, or do they deal with the realities o
their affair head-on?
5. Te second dramatic phase should take the lovers into the
heart o their relationship. Te lovers may start out in an idyl-
lic phase, but as the social and psychological realities o their
affair become clear, the affair may start to dissolve or come
under great pressure to dissolve.
6. Te third dramatic phase should take the lovers to the end
point o their relationship and settle all the moral scores. Te
lovers are usually separated, either by death, orce, or deser-
tion.
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Master Plot 16:sacrifice
1. Te sacrifice should come at a great personal cost; your pro-
tagonist is playing or high stakes, either physical or mental.
2. Your protagonist should undergo a major transormation
during the course o the story, moving rom a lower moral
state to a higher one.
3. Make the events orce your protagonists decision.
4. Make sure you lay an adequate oundation o character so the
reader understands his progress on the path to making sac-
rifice.
5. Remember that all events should be a reflection o your main
character. Tey test and develop character.
6. Make clear the motivation o your protagonist so the readerunderstands why he would make that kind o sacrifice.
7. Show the line o action through the line o your characters
thought.
8. Have a strong moral dilemma at the center o your story.
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Master Plot 17:discovery
1. Remember that the discovery plot is more about the charac-
ter making the discovery than the discovery itsel. Tis isnt
a search or the secrets o the lost tombs o some Incan king;
its a search or understanding about human nature. Focus
your story on the character, not on what the character does.
2. Start your plot with an understanding o who the main char-
acter isbeforecircumstances change and orce the characterinto new situations.
3. Dont linger on your main characters ormer lie; integrate
past with present and uture. Place the character on the cusp
o change. Start the action as late as possible, but also give the
reader a strong impression o the main characters personal-
ity as it was beore events started to change her character.
4. Make sure the catalyst that orces the change (rom a state o
equilibrium to disequilibrium) is significant and interesting
enough to hold the readers attention. Dont be trivial. Dont
dwell on insignificant detail.
5. Move your character into the crisis (the clash between the
present and the past) as quickly as possible, but maintain
the tension o past and present as a undamental part o yourstorys tension.
6. Maintain a sense o proportion. Balance action and emotion
so that they remain believable. Make sure your characters
revelations are in proportion to the events.
7. Dont exaggerate either your characters emotions or the ac-
tions o your character to orce emotions rom her. (Tismaintains proportion.)Avoid being melodramatic.
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8. Dont preach or orce your characters to carry your messages
or you. Let your characters and their circumstances speak or
themselves. Let the reader draw his own conclusions based
on the events o the story.
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Master Plot 18: Wretched excess
1. Wretched excess is generally about the psychological decline
o a character.
2. Base the decline o your character on a character flaw.
3. Present the decline o your character in three phases: how he
is beore events start to change him; how he is as he succes-
sively deteriorates; and what happens afer events reach a cri-
sis point, orcing him either to give in completely to his flaw
(tragedy) or to recover rom it.
4. Develop your character so that his decline evokes sympathy.
Dont present him as a raving lunatic.
5. ake particular care in the development o your character,
because the plot depends on your ability to convince the au-
dience that he is both real and worthy o their eelings or
him.
6. Avoid melodrama. Dont try to orce emotion beyond what
the scene can carry.
7. Be straightorward with inormation that allows the reader
to understand your main character. Dont hide anything that
will keep your reader rom being empathetic.
8. Most writers want the audience to eel or the main character,
so dont make your character commit crimes out o propor-
tion o our understanding o who and what he is. Its hard to
be sympathetic with a person whos a rapist or a serial mur-
derer.
9. At the crisis point o your story, move your character eithertoward complete destruction or redemption. Dont leave him
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swinging in the wind, because your reader will definitely not
be satisfied.
10. Action in your plot should always relate to character. Tings
happenbecauseyour main character does (or does not) do
certain things. Te cause and effects o your plot should al-
ways relate either directly or indirectly to your main char-
acter.
11. Dont lose your character in his madness. Nothing beats per-
sonal experience when it comes to this plot. I you dont un-
derstand the nature o the excess yoursel (having experi-
enced it), be careul about having your character do things
that arent realistic or the circumstances. Do your home-
work. Understand the nature o the excess you want to write
about.
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Master Plots 19 & 20: ascension
& descension
1. Te ocus o your story should be about a single character.
2. Tat character should be strong-willed, charismatic, and
seemingly unique. All o your other characters will revolve
around this one.
3. At the heart o your story should be a moral dilemma. Tis
dilemma tests the character o your protagonist/antagonist,
and it is the oundation or the catalyst o change in her char-
acter.
4. Character and event are closely related to each other. Any-
thing that happens should happen because o the main char-
acter. She is the orce that affects events, not the reverse. (Tis
isnt to say that events cant affect your main character, butthat we are more interested in how she acts upon the world
than how the world acts upon her.)
5. ry to show your character as she was beore the major change
that altered her lie so we have a basis o comparison.
6. Show your character progressing through successive changes
as a result o events. I it is a story about a character who over-comes horrible circumstances, show the nature o that char-
acter while she still suffers under those circumstances. Ten
show us how events change her nature during the course o
the story. Dont jump rom one character state to another;
that is, show how your character moves rom one state to an-
other by giving us her motivation and intent.
7. I your story is about the all o a character, make certain the
reasons or her all are a result o character and not gratuitous
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circumstances. Te reason or a rise may be gratuitous (the
character wins $27 million in LottoAmerica), but not the rea-
sons or her all. Te reasons or a characters ability to over-
come adversity should also be the result o her character, not
some contrivance.
8. ry to avoid a straight dramatic rise or all. Vary the circum-
stances in the characters lie: Create rises and alls along the
way. Dont just put your character on a rocket to the top and
then crash. Vary intensity o the events, too. It may seem ora moment that your character has conquered her flaw, when
in act, it doesnt last long. And vice versa. Afer several set-
backs, the character finally breaks through (as a result o her
tenacity, courage, belie, etc.).
9. Always ocus on your main character. Relate all events and
characters to your main character. Show us the character be-
ore, during, and afer the change