Tuesday morning

Matt’s craft talk

Matt differentiated between chronic tension—the emotional baggage a character carries onto scene 1—and acute tension—the plot putting pressure on the chronic tension.

He has someone read the first page of Goodbye, Colombia, and asks us what the busybody character, Aunt Gladys, accomplishes. We decided that she puts up obstacles, shows us socioeconomic class, shows us chronic tension, gives us details about their lives, and tells us about the character of our protagonist.

            “How many ms in omission? One? Omit the second one?” Matt

            He asked us what a climax needs. A peak in tension, we agreed. An answer to the question asked at the beginning. Often, a reversal. Often, it’s a result of a change in character. People take definitive action, which changes things, shuts a door, can’t be undone. And it has to make sense with the rest of the book. For example, says Matt,

            “Harry Potter has to fight Doctor Voldemort.” What if Harry decided to go to dental school instead? The book has not prepared us for a climax surrounding dental school. The climax should arise from the setup from the book, from character. It should involve a power shift. It should be inevitable, yet surprising. And they need to be about the protagonist doing something, not something happening to them. He suggested the idea that each chapter would have a mini-climax.

            In the beginning, says Matt, you set up what your character wants. What is the absolute last thing your character would do? At the end, have them do it.

            “That’s overly technical, it’s not true, but you know what I mean.” Matt

            He had us write a setup consisting of the following: _______ lives in ________ and is a ________and wants __________. Just like Patricia’s. It needs to be a concrete want, he says, something you can hold in your hand. To get into college isn’t good enough. To get into St. Mary’s College isn’t good enough. To hold an acceptance letter from St. Mary’s College in your hand is good enough. Next, you decide what the last thing your character would do is. Finally, you make them a to-do list of five things that they need to do today/every day.

            My choice: Leandra lives in Philadelphia and is a student and wants to write Spanish (gender-neutral) pronouns in a letter to Spanish teacher.

            I on-the-spot invented a Spanish teacher who’s become friends with Leandra, wants to keep in touch, who Leandra can fear telling, but I don’t think I’ll keep her. Leandra can want something more abstract.

            Last thing s/he would do: This I have left blank, but have since decided it would be something along the lines of deliberately hurt Jimena while at the same time compromising his/her own autonomy/integrity/sense of self.

            To do:

1.      Take a biology class at Bryn Mawr

2.      Build a robot

3.      Talk to best friend Jimena

4.      Get the name of the hot person at the next table (Nadie)

5.      Get the people at lunch table to explain about this pronoun thing

Matt asks for someone’s list who didn’t write down their own work in progress because he didn’t want to rip it up. We got: Dr. Jacoby lives in NYC, is a brain surgeon. He wants his yellow belt (eventually black belt). The last thing he would ever do was debated—the kid whose idea it was said ask for help. I think it was eventually decided to be ‘not try for the best’ or something—he’s a neurosurgeon, someone said, he’s a narcissist by design.

1.      Drop kid off at school

2.      Get to hospital

3.      Meet colleague on neuroplasticity

4.      Cook dinner for family

5.      Karate class

Matt decided to shorten the time frame. Now we’re picking the kid up from school. The belt test is tonight.

Plot.

1.      Dog runs away, flat tire, traffic jam, vomit on karate clothes

2.      Emergency surgery one hour before test

3.      Colleague is physically aggressive

4.      Dinner makes them sick

5.      Break hand

Matt decided to up the stakes again. The kid is 17, and also training for his yellow belt. Final plot: He gets punked at work by his neuroplasticity colleague, dog vomits on PJs (both of theirs), his emergency surgery ends in death, car door hurts his hand, the kid can’t break the board at the test, so he, out of love for his kid, throws the test.

We’ll call it Fists of Neuroplasticity.

This’ll have a lot to do with plot for me. I’m putting a lot of thinking into what Leandra’s least likely to do at the beginning of the story. How can I make that happen at the end? How about the to-do list—what small ups and downs can I add to the middle? What kind of definitive action can Leandra take? The way my plot’s been working, it won’t be coming out—none of that will be both important enough and happen late enough. Most of Bryn Mawr/Haverford will know earlier on, and the parents aren’t playing a big enough role. Also, that isn’t deliberately damaging to Jimena, it’s just Leandra choosing self-identity over Jimena, which isn’t really a story. It’s making me think that Leandra needs to be with Nadie. It can be the last straw for Jimena, and it’s a decision that’s more about Leandra trying to figure out who s/he is than the relationship, which is against Leandra’s own autonomy.