Three Things

I’m thinking about character arcs once again—as I often do. I was looking back on a passage in Will Storr’s book The Science of Storytelling, in which he discusses the fact that once we get past adolescence, our brains become less plastic and harder to change. We spend our childhood building a model of how the world works. But as we enter adulthood, we no longer build models; we defend the ones we’ve already built. Or as Storr says, "Now that the flawed self with its flawed model of the world has been constructed, the brain starts to protect it."

Storr cites neurobiologist Bruce Wexler, who says, "Once [the brain’s] internal structures are established, they turn the relationship between the internal and external around. Instead of the internal structures being shaped by the environment, the individual now acts to preserve established structures in the face of environmental challenges, and finds changes in structure difficult and painful."

This is at the root of character arc. A character has a flawed understanding about how the world works and/or who they are within that world. The story forces the character to confront all sorts of external challenges that require him to reconsider his internal structures, which is "difficult and painful."

People will go to great lengths to continue believing in lies. The storyteller's job is to present the character with a need to either change or die.

This is more of an observation than a tip, really. But I’ve been reading The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion, which features a first-person narrator who is socially inept and logical to a fault. He undertakes a quest for a wife ("The Wife Project," he calls it) by creating a scientifically reliable questionnaire for his prospective mate. However, he meets Rosie, who throws all his assumptions about what he needs and wants out the window.

The protagonist, Don, is clueless about so many things, but Simsion always allows the reader to be savvy to what Don is missing. There’s a name for this dynamic: dramatic irony. Put simply, it’s when the reader knows something the character doesn’t know.

My go-to exemplar for dramatic irony is Fredrik Backman’s A Man Called Ove. But The Rosie Project is giving Ove a run for his money.

Not all stories lend themselves well to dramatic irony, but it can be a lot of fun for the reader, who gets to feel really smart all the time.

I have a course in which I talk about dramatic irony (compared to mystery and suspense). If you think you might have a protagonist whose naivete features prominently within your story, learn all you can about how to use dramatic irony.

A while back on Twitter, a controversy arose about writing prompts. Someone made the following claim: "Am I the only writer who not only thinks writing prompts are not good, but that they’re actually harmful?" And then, of course, because it’s Twitter, people piled on to say how much they disagreed with this man’s statement.

I do not come down hard on one side or other of this "debate." I wouldn’t say I find writing prompts harmful exactly, but as someone who doesn’t really like to use writing prompts for my own writing, I’m curious to know specifically why those of you who like them like them.

How do you use writing prompts and what kinds do you find most valuable? Reply here or chime in at The Woods.