Lesson Story Structure and Plot 3-12 Video Lecture | Learn and Master: Creative Writing - Art & Craft

okay so the conflict doesn't really
enter the story he's had little
conflicts here and there little things
that push the story along but the main
conflict doesn't enter the story until
he is faced where until he has he's
conflicted so think of conflict as being
conflicted your carrot your main
character is conflicted
he's like deciding between two things
one of the best ways to think of
conflict I guess would be the old the
old question so there's a railroad track
and the railroad track v's off your
hands on the lever and if you pull the
lever the train will go left if you
don't pull the lever the train will
continue straight if the can if the
train continue straight it runs into a
house full of kids and blows them up and
they all die if you pull the lever it
goes left and it runs into a house with
your mother in it so what do you do if
you don't do anything and don't pull the
lever it runs in and kills these
children that you don't know but there's
a whole house full of children it kills
if you pull the lever it kills your
mother what do you do that's conflict
right there when your character has to
face something like that that's conflict
and so he's conflicted because if he if
he gets his crabs and just goes back to
the harbor then they miss out on what
they're needing they're needing to get
back to and I need to make it strong I
have thought of what it is yet but
wedding just doesn't seem strong enough
why would he care about them going to a
wedding so it needs to be something
strong like they need to get back to
their to their father or to their
brother who's dying and they have a
certain herb that will save him and if
they don't get back in time he'll be
dead so now he's conflicted well my
boats going to die if I don't get these
crabs if I don't get enough of them but
if I spend the time to get them back I'm
going to lose my contract and then I
then the crabs I did catch we're going
to be hard to sell and you know without
a contract and I'm not going to get
nearly as much as much for them I won't
be able fix my boat my boat might not
make it out again this might be my last
to run until I can get money to fix it
you know as it is she's falling apart
so he's conflicted between this the
stranger see Matt and do I help them for
they can save their brother or do I help
myself and you know he ends up deciding
to help them but yeah so that's conflict
okay so moving on really quick then we
got foreshadowing foreshadowing is you
you know you're going to have reveals
revelation so I put up here a couple
places that are good to have revelations
is where the character has revelations
and this pneumatic relation is our
revelation but anyway so at the halfway
points a good place have revelation all
seems lost a good place have revelation
also at the very end is a good place to
have a revelation both the main
character revelation and at the manic
revelation the revelations um you know
are like an in the sixth sense the
revelation the sixth sense and if you
haven't seen the movie then I don't know
this is maybe a spoiler the revelation
at the end of sixth sense is that the
main character realize is that he's one
of the ghosts that the kid sees that
he's dead and that's also a theme not a
thematic revelation but it's a Carol
it's a it's our revelation we also
realized that when he realizes it
obviously so that's not a thematic
relation but anyway um it is a
revelation for us so when you have these
revelations you need to foreshadow them
because if you don't foreshadow them you
don't foreshadow revelations then they
just fall deaf and you they don't make
much sense and it's the the people
watching a reading aren't going to be
satisfied imagine if the sixth sense
never hinted at the fact he was dead
gave no hints at all like the
conversation with his wife and she seems
to be ignoring him well because she
doesn't see him that happens a couple
times so without those kinds of hints
and like you know that there's like the
doorknob thing in the beginning without
those hence the ending dis feels
unsatisfied unsatisfying it's it would
be like you have this whole story and
everything's getting crazier and crazier
for the main character you know
everything's going bad oh my god you
know I'm going to die whatever and then
he wakes up oh hos all a dream but
there's absolutely no hints to it you
know that's what it's like and and
that's like one of the worst kinds
revelations use is oh it was all a dream
haha pretty much I don't know if you can
ever make that work maybe if you wrote
it skillfully enough you can make that
revelation work
I doubt it so you watts foreshadowing is
is foreshadowing events to come so you
know if I main character is going to die
you want to foreshadow that you know
like in Stephen King's novel Pet
Sematary
that the you know the son is going to
die it's foreshadowed you know that you
know that something Bad's going to
happen
so it's all foreshadowed something Bad's
going to happen so you know it when it
happens you're not so surprised
so you want to hint that these things
you know in my sci-fi novel in which I
wrote based on this last version of this
teaching I did of the story structure
I'm plotting my main character at the
end dies and so I had a foreshadow that
throughout the whole novel and that way
you know feels satisfactory when he does
die and you don't like feel ripped off
okay so foreshadowing then there's world
building world building is just that
building your world you got you have to
think of how everything works how does
the world work if it's on earth you
still have to think of you know where
what are the setting piece is going to
be where the place is going to take
place is going to be like on tropical
beaches you know exotic places you know
you want interesting places where your
novel to pick take place where you can
describe these places and that way it's
cool you know if it if it all takes
place in a supermarket you're not left
with much to describe but then you want
to get more into characters and stuff I
guess
anyway fantasy you definitely want to do
a lot of will building and you've got to
do a lot of thinking you have to think
about kingdoms and and and factions and
how they get along and how the races get
along what races hate each other what
races like each other
what races are at war with each other
you know and then you know with like
with my sci-fi novel the agita they live
in the trees I had to think about how
they live in the trees you know why and
why they live in the trees because he's
like gigantic beasts aren't being just
beasts on the ground and so they have to
live I up in the trees out of harm's way
and you know I thought of a story um a
structure for this people like there's a
higher level and lower level the people
at the lower level do all like the grunt
work like mashing berries and breaking
nuts apart and stuff and so it's kind of
like a it lays a sort of a caste system
like you have in India and you know I
had to think about all that and I had to
think about how they you know like for
example they have these pulleys with
buckets and that
they can pull the buckets up to the
higher levels after they've you know
either peel the nuts or smash the
berries whatever so they can lower level
things to each other without having to
you know worry about going up and down
ladders and ropes and stuff and so it's
an easy way to lower and lower things to
each other like if you want to buy
something from somebody above you know
they can just lower it with these
pulleys I had to think of you know they
don't use any technology because they
can't because the Amissah hate
technology and they sense it they come
and they'll start destroying their
village to get to the technology so they
have that you know think about how to
think of ways how do they shower and you
know how to divide away and so it's like
they have these tarts like these funnels
that catch rainwater and stuff that's
how they get all their water and then
they store it and they you I have like
these like large containers and they you
know open it up and go pours down
through it like a showerhead type of
thing so they can shower and everything
so I had to think all that so that is
your world building then you have back
history which you really want to know
your main characters you want to know
the back history the more you know about
their back history the and also you can
manipulate the back history to fit your
story structure so sometimes as you're
moving along and making your story you
might want to change some of the back
history but you still want to know
something about your characters back
history you know where do they go to
school have that how many boyfriends or
girlfriends that they had have they had
sex you know what are they loose
were they conservative are they are they
religious you know these kinds of things
you want to know something about your
character so they feel real and rounded
and solid and the main things you want
to know about your character are listed
up here and so before we move into that
though I want to get into the next main
thing we have on this line here that's
theme theme is what you want to tell the
world theme is what you want your story
to mean it's the impact that your story
has it's the underlining meaning of your
story you know in in this example with
the fisherman it's just a simple story
of a fisherman that you know has a cool
conflict and fight some creatures and
brings these sisters back to the home
homeland and falls in love and and find
something out about themselves and
that's where the theme is hidden
underneath all that and depending on how
I end my story changes the
theme the reason why you want to know
what your theme is though so you want to
know what your end goal is going to be
before you even begin writing you kind
of want to know all this stuff
at least loosely before you begin
writing I'm telling you this makes the
writing process so much easier but
definitely knowing your end goal will
help you design your story to that every
scene builds up to that goal to when
that when that end point happens it's
impactful it just explodes and blows
people's minds so the theme is the
underlining meaning of the story it can
be like the moral meaning it could be a
moral lesson sometimes themes are simple
you'll have other themes but you have
your main arcing theme and that the what
that theme is is really revealed on how
your story ends so ok check out master
edit in the description and come back
for the next part and we'll continue
running through all this stuff