SOME THOUGHTS ON PLOTS

Some writers need to outline their stories ahead of time, others like to plunge into the middle of the action with a character or two and see what happens.

However way you start, you may find yourself stopping and starting a great many times as the story unfolds. Turns out, it's those pesky details that operate the plot.

Take the famous dilemma story: the fox, the duck, and the bag of grain. Some peasant hero or other (in olden times, I think we have to assume) is traveling across country with those three items, each of which presents some problems.

Problems which are never more obvious than when the fellow finds himself on the bank of a wide river. He needs to get to the other side to continue his journey, and luckily (!) someone has left a (very) small rowboat on this side.

Just row his butt across, right?

Ah, but there's a complication . . . which we'll get to in a moment.

Let's consider what we have so far. A character is on a journey. That's good. You pretty much need at least one character to carry the viewpoint of your story. And the fact the guy's on a journey is even better.

Characters (especially main characters) need something to do. They need to be going somewhere or going after something. They need a goal. Something important to the guy. Something a reader can understand as worth having. (In a movie script, it's preferable the goal be visible, so the audience will be able to see when he's got it.)

Okay, we're on our way: a character with a goal. (Kurt Vonnegut used to say he liked his characters to start out wanting something, if only a glass of water.)

Now we need complications. You can't just let the guy walk up and cop the goal. (Or if he does, that event has to lead to something even bigger. A kid pulls a sword from a stone. That was easy. But now he's entered a wider world of adventure and the real story begins.)

Okay, so here's our guy standing on the bank of the river he must cross. That's the first problem (complication, obstacle). And here's the second: The little rowboat is too small to carry more than the guy and one of his three objects. He can take the fox across, or the duck, or the bag of grain—but just one at a time.

Next, an even bigger problem: There are disastrous restrictions on his choice. He can't just grab the object nearest to hand, haul it across to the other side, and come back for another until all are across.

If he leaves the fox with the duck, the fox will eat the duck. If he leaves the duck with the bag of grain, the duck will eat the grain. Neither of these outcomes will do, because for some reason the guy must arrive at his destination with all three items intact.

And by the way, the "reason" for this restriction on the goal must be vital and unavoidable, as is the nature of the conflict between fox/duck and duck/grain. Problems have to be "real" in the context of the story. No "paper" tigers allowed.

(In the movie Ghostbusters it was set up you can't cross the energy streams of those "unlicensed nuclear accelerators" the 'Busters carried on their backs. But to defeat the final threat, they crossed the streams. Excuse me? If you go to the trouble of setting a thing up, you have to obey your own rules. In this case, maybe it would have been possible to fire two of the weapons into reflective surfaces, reversing the beams' polarization before letting the streams come together. Or some other such nonsense; hey, it's only a movie.)

Let's say our character is not very bright. When he realizes he can't take everything at once, he grabs up an item at random (let's say it's the fox) and climbs into the boat. Just as he's about to cast off, he looks back to shore and sees the duck standing there eyeing the bag of grain. And he stops.

He's not a complete idiot, okay?

So he climbs out of the boat, puts the fox down, and considers his problem. Now—at last—he realizes there is a problem. He puts his feeble imagination to work, mentally removing each item one at a time and envisioning the results. Can't leave the fox and duck together, can't leave the duck and grain together.

When he gets to the last combination, he rejoices. He can leave the fox with the bag of grain.

So he grabs the only item that works (the duck) and rows across the river. He leaves the duck on the far shore and comes back for . . . well, does it matter? Pick up either item (fox or grain) and what does it leave? Just the other item, all by itself, perfectly safe.

So he grabs the bag of grain and rows across the river.

But as he approaches the far side, he looks over his shoulder at the duck, then down at his feet at the bag of grain, and realizes with a sinking feeling he has made a mistake. He can't just drop off the bag of grain and go back for the fox.

Let's say our guy is not smart enough to call a time out to think things through. Instead, he spins the boat around, rows right back across the river, and heaves the bag of grain out onto the grassy bank next to the fox.

Here's the meta problem: If you, as the author, don't like to plan stuff out in advance, you still have to make a decision concerning your main character. Is that guy also the sort of person who strikes out on a quest without a plan? I think the answer is "probably."

Let's say, then, your hero is not the "thinking" type. He's tried the grain. This time he grabs the fox and rows it across the river. Only to realize when he gets there he's made yet another mistake.

Now the despair sets in. He had no problem hauling that duck across the river. (In fact, it was the only possible action to take, given the restrictions.) But now he's stymied. He can take neither the fox nor the bag of grain across the river and leave it with the duck long enough to go back for the final item. What's he going to do?

There is a neat solution to this problem, one that gets him everything he wants, but there's a new detail in the way. You (as story teller) have to consider the mental make-up of your character. Is the guy smart enough to come up with this "magic" solution? Or will it look like you came up with it on his behalf?

Absent the magic solution, what are his alternatives? He can always drag one of the remaining items across the river and keep going on his journey, abandoning the third item forever. But would that even work? Maybe. It all depends on how the story is set up.

See, now you have to stop again and get into the reasons for his journey and what he hopes to accomplish at the end of it. You need to establish his goals in greater detail.

Also, you need to build the world he lives in.

Suppose he shows up without the fox or without the grain. What are the consequences for each failure? Which of these items can he live without?

(Technically, neither of them, or your initial set-up is faulty.)

How likely would it be for him to find a substitute? Can he go on without the fox in the hope he can trap another fox on the way? Or does it happen this particular fox is special? So special, in fact, the folks at his destination will be able to tell the difference the instant they lay eyes on the thing.

So let's say he keeps the fox. Would it be possible for him to obtain another bag of grain? Maybe he could train the fox and the duck to stage some sort of fake fight, and get villagers to bet handfuls of grain on the outcome. Keep doing that until he had a full bag.

More problems. You need to look at the day-to-day details of his journey. How is he handling his three items? Is the fox in a cage of sticks lashed together with string? Does the duck have a lanyard around its neck, with a line that can be staked to the ground to keep it from wandering off?

These sorts of practical details need to be worked out if the story is to have enough verisimilitude. The details might make your story harder to sell to the reader. You might complicate your story too much. Or not enough.

But you need to answer the obvious questions: Why isn't the fox in a cage? How does the guy keep the duck from wandering off? Are there magic spells involved? What are the rules for the magic? How might those rules complicate the story?

(Got Gremlins? Don't feed 'em after midnight!)

More details to trip over: How long is this journey? If it's more than a day, how does the hero handle nights on the road? Does he just keep trudging along in the dark? If he stops, how can he get any sleep, knowing his charges might be getting up to mischief?

(If the guy turns out to be blithely unaware of the problems, his problems are likely to settle themselves on the first night.)

If the fox is in a cage, it would probably be safe to leave it alone (for a while, at least) with the duck. If the duck can be staked out, the hero should be able to place the bag of grain far enough away for it to be safe.

The more these (necessary) details are established, the more options the guy has. The problem here is that any reasonable set of details moves the story in exactly the wrong direction . . . from the point of view of the writer. In the beginning we had lots of complications. Now, we have none. The original story is effectively dead.

But that's just too bad, kiddo. You have to supply reasonable details, then live with the results. You can't omit those details for your own convenience in plotting. You'll just need to find your complications someplace else.

The hero might decide this way: Let the duck have the grain. In the time it takes to get the fox across the river, it's unlikely the duck could eat all of that stuff.

(If the hero makes the other choice, the fox might not be able to eat all of the duck, either, but the duck would almost certainly be dead—which sounds like something that would violate the rules of the goal.)

So, okay, he leaves the duck alone with the bag. When he gets back with the fox some of the grain is missing. Does that have to be a fatal outcome? Along the way the hero might pick up some rocks to fill out the partially eaten bag of grain and sew it back closed. Problem solved.

Or is it? At the end of his journey, those few clunky stones might cause a major stink when the bag is examined by the King's grain inspector (or whatever).

On the other hand, it's nice to have one final, unexpected problem to challenge your hero. Sometimes the "solution" to an early problem can turn out to be a disaster later on.

Remember, every problem must have its solution, and the best solutions come from the efforts of the hero himself. Accordingly, heroes need to have various useful skills. Moreover, those skills should be demonstrated (or at least mentioned) early in the story. Sometimes readers fix on these skills, keen to see them in action. Be careful not to disappoint.

(Someone [Chekhov?] suggested the gun mounted on the wall over the fireplace in Act One must be fired by the end of Act Three.)

Better to have the reader worried about problems the hero is overlooking. It creates suspense. Also, this way the reader can count himself right when the problem surfaces at last. It's your job to surprise those guys even though they've got their eyes on the ball. Try a little misdirection.

After the problem comes up, have your hero whip out one of his skills . . . but maybe it could be the wrong skill—which he applies in some unexpected manner to solve the problem.

Okay, back to the story. Things might work out another way. Say the hero examines the fox's cage and sees the wily beast has been gnawing at the lashings that hold the sticks together. Uh-oh.

Averting disaster, the hero leaves the devious fox on the bank and takes the grain across. He drops off the grain a reasonable distance from the staked-out duck and heads back. He grabs the fox and sets off in return, singing a happy song of triumph. But halfway across the river he realizes the duck is nibbling furiously at the string that holds it to the stake. Suddenly the bag of grain is once again in jeopardy.

The guy rows faster, but before he can make it across the fox chews its way out of the cage and jumps overboard. Back on the far bank, the duck has gotten loose and is ripping into the bag of grain. And now the fox has emerged from the water and is running right at the duck.

Our hero freaks, upsets the rowboat, and tumbles into the water himself. Naturally, he can't swim.

And so forth. That's plot. Things happen for a reason, cause and effect. Situations get a lot worse before they get better. There are reversals. The stakes are raised. The hero despairs, then makes the supreme effort. When at last your guy reaches the goal, the story's over. Bail.

Longer works have multiple, interlocking goals. Try not to conclude one without first introducing another, even thornier one. The working out of all these goals might just lead to a conclusion someone could mistake for a theme.

But that's their problem.

[Spoiler Alert! If you've never heard this fox/duck/grain story before, here's the "magic" solution: The guy first hauls the duck across the river and comes back for one of the other two items (it doesn't matter which). He drops the item off next to the duck, realizes his problem, and rows the duck back across the river. Now he's free to take the third item, leaving the duck behind for one last trip.]

COUNTING WORDS

I mentioned last time I was going with Notepad++ for all my writing. I said the only thing I might miss from MS Word was the word count tool. I also said it's not that important for indie puppers to have an accurate word count.

Ignoring that last bit (and to aid those who just gotta know what the count is), I set out to obtain a substitute for Word's counting tool.

I found a free program called Primitive Word Counter, but when I ran it, I was surprised to discover the program does not give you a count of the total number of words in a chunk of text. Rather, it tells you how many times you used each word (by raw number and percentage).

As a bonus, it provides the total number of different words used, in case you want to check the breadth of your working vocabulary.

(There was also a list of "phrases" used. In the work I used as a sample, the phrase "of the" was used the most [200 times]. Maybe I should watch that in the future.)

Since I didn't want to waste the time I spent downloading the program, I tried a little calculation. It said I used the word "the" the most: 1935 times or 6.56% of the time. I divided 1935 by .0656 and came up with 29,497 (after rounding). That should be a good approximation of the total words.

How close was it to the MS Word count? Word clocked this manuscript at 29,204. Assuming this to be accurate, the error was 293 words, or 1.0033%. Not too bad. Using other words from the top of the list resulted in similar accuracy. (There were 5132 different words listed.) If the Primitive counter had given the use percentage to three places, I could have done better. (Words used only once [more than half the total] produced a 0.00% use rate.)

Since I always end up proofing my books in Firefox, I also downloaded an add-on app for word counting. Its count for the same chunk of text was 29,871. An error of 2.28%. Less good...

Then I messed about with Notepad++ itself. Every word has a space after it (except the last one in a given paragraph). Counting the number of spaces gave me 28,449 "words." That's 2.58% low. Adding one word for every paragraph brought the count to 29,217. I then subtracted the number of dashes (16), because en dashes (when expressed on the final page) add an extra space to the text, distorting the count. Final tally: 29,201 words, just 3 words less than MS Word's count. Error: .01027%.

I'll take it!

But here's the problem I just ellided over. I started with the "completed" HTML version of the manuscript. I opened the file in Firefox and highlighted the main text (to give the add-on app a chance to get a count), then copied and pasted the text into Word for its count.

I also pasted the text into a new tab in Notepad++ to get my text-based count of spaces. (Just open the Find window, tap the space bar to put a space in the "Find what" window, and click Count.)

(Skipping this step, and counting the spaces in the HTML file, is problematical. There are lots of extra spaces embedded in the tags.)

If you use Notepad++ to compose text, you can count spaces in your WIP to get a fast idea of the wordage to that point. The "space" count will be, as we've seen, some 2.5% low. You could just make the adjustment.

To get the most accurate count, however, you need to include paragraphs and dashes into the mix. How do you find out how many paragraphs and dashes there are?

Since I was starting with an HTML version of the book, it was easy to count the number of times /p> showed up. (For more accuracy, I also temporarily removed the front matter of the document.) Similar procedure for counting dashes; run a search for the HTML tag for dashes.

But if you haven't got that far in the writing process, you won't yet have an HTML version to make counting paragraphs easy. In a text only environment, Notepad++ doesn't let you count carriage returns (which appear when you click the Show All Characters icon). And if you're well along in the writing there will probably be too many paragraphs to count manually.

I suppose you could use Primitive counter and make the calculation based on the use of selected words. You'll only be off by one percent.

But there's a better way.

The method I suggest for creating text destined to run through MobiPocket Creator is to leave a blank line (an extra carriage return) between paragraphs. As a result, the number of actual paragraphs is easily calculated. Add one to Notepad++'s last line number and divide by two. Now add this to the number of spaces found.

Dashes in manuscripts are handled differently than final page text. In the draft, I suggest you use two hyphens (and no spaces) to denote dashes (they become en [or em] dashes after a search of the HTML document). This means each "dash" links two words into one extra long one, actually reducing the count. So: Count the double hyphens and for each add one word to the total. (Same with ellipses: add one word for each.)

The adjusted "space" count for this blog post was dead on, compared to MS Word. Error: 0.00%.

Using the HTML file to create a word count is very, very accurate. Just not as accurate as working with the original text file. If you still have one.