Pinball Wizard

Ultimately, plots are driven by the characters. Even when the main character is shipwrecked on a desert island and supposedly forced by this outside circumstance to struggle against nature, the character could simply give up and starve to death. Most writers don’t choose characters who would do that, of course.

But even the character who’s been shipwrecked starts the story with a plan. They were on that ship that got wrecked because they were going somewhere, and they expected to do something (go sightseeing, close a business deal, meet a family member) when they got there. That plan obviously didn’t work out, and probably doesn’t have anything to do with the character’s attempts to survive on the island, but they still had one.

When one is writing a Man-versus-Nature novel, where for 90% of the novel, there’s only one character and all the major story problems revolve around survival/escape/returning home, the character’s initial plan can be vague and general. It can be useful for characterization – showing that the character’s motivation will be getting home to their spouse and kids, or establishing their expertise in evaluating water quality that comes in handy for surviving later on – but it’s not going to be directly related to the main plot.

The vast majority of stories, however, have more than one character, and every single character has a life that includes plans, and relationships to other people that affect those plans. As soon as one character encounters another, their plans start interacting and changing. Sometimes, the effect on the main plot is tiny or insignificant; sometimes it’s huge. The point is that it will be there.

It’s like a giant pinball game: each character starts from a particular position, bent on moving in a particular direction. As soon as the writer sets them in motion, they start bouncing off each other and the walls, changing their speeds and trajectories. If a given character is really fixated on their original plan, they’ll try to “fix” whatever has changed so they can get back on course; if the new direction seems more appealing, they’ll stop trying to get back on their original path and move in the new direction instead (until they bump into someone else and it happens all over again).

I personally find it extremely useful to nail down those starting positions. I want to know that Jack and Ed are competing for a seat on the King’s Council; that Crown Prince George wants to become a wizard instead of staying at court, but is afraid to tell his father; that Ed’s girlfriend Sally is secretly part of a revolutionary cabal; that Jennifer wants to become a healer but her brother Jack wants her to marry the Crown Prince to further his political ambitions.

Knowing where each character starts, what direction they’re heading, and at least part of why they think they want to go that way, allows me to see lots of possible plot complications to choose from. George’s relationship with his father is clearly a bit fraught; maybe there are other interesting problems there. Jack is plainly a plotter; if he hooks up with Sally, the kingdom could be in trouble. Jennifer and George might actually make a good couple, if they can get around Jack’s political plotting and whatever the king wants. Ed might turn traitor to get Sally back, or Sally could be so disgusted by Jack’s plans that she betrays the cabal. George might end up striking a deal with his father so that he can learn magic while still showing up at court, or he might refuse the throne in favor of going off to learn magic with Jennifer.

Having a clear idea of starting positions also shows me where things are missing. Why are Jack and Ed competing for that council seat? Are they friendly rivals, or bitter enemies? Enemies would fit better with Jack deliberately seducing Ed’s girlfriend, but it might be more interesting if Jack were betraying a friend. Why does George think his father won’t let him be a wizard? Is it a personal dislike, or is there some rule that says a wizard can’t be king?

Usually, I start off knowing who my main character is, but most of the complications and subplots (and often a lot of the main plot) come from knowing where the characters start, what direction they’re moving in, and why they decided to head that way, and then looking at how all that is going to intersect and conflict with other characters’ plans.

One doesn’t always need all the details of a particular character’s plan. Like the shipwreck survivor, the initial story events may make the character’s first plan a moot point. Minor characters often don’t need more than a general direction; if Carol runs into the protagonist while she’s out shopping, neither the reader nor the writer really needs to know whether she’s shopping for garden tools or looking at wedding dresses.

The other thing to remember is that what I am looking at here is the characters’ starting positions and where they think they are going. At this point, I don’t need to know where they are really going to go, much less where they’ll end up or how they’ll get there. In a pinball game, all the balls eventually come together at the bottom and drop down the drain. That isn’t nearly as inevitable in a novel, in one sense, but the writer has a lot more control over where the characters go, what happens to them, and how they progress than a pinball player has over the balls.