Crafting a Story, Part TWO

So, now I've got my inspiration, I've expanded upon it, and started creating characters. I've created two protagonists, a few supporting characters for each, and an antagonist to face against. Now is the time for me to start asking important questions about the different elements of my story. Let's look at the questions I start asking myself:

1. THEME - When I was expanding my inspiration, I decided that I would have a theme of racing against the clock. I'm going to further this by making it Time is not an ally. I also want an element of sacrifice in my story. How will I show those themes? Now that I have decided, I will pepper my narrative with things like the ticking of a clock, alarms going off, characters asking for the time. The theme of sacrifice will be seen in the characters and their actions.
2. PLOT - We already have our plot, don't we? Sure, we have what the story is about but now we have to look at the different elements of the plot and make sure that we are giving them their just dues. First is Exposition, the information necessary to understand the story. During the story, I need to explain that there is a great evil sealed behind a barrier that has a warden who is dying. Furthermore, my main character Theresa is destined to take this warden's place. This information will be peppered throughout the story, but at the beginning, you will only know about Theresa and that she is sixteen in twelve days. Next, we need the complication, the event that sets off the plot. That one is easy, it is when she reads the prophecy written on the wall of the bathroom. After that, it is the Climax. This is when the characters try to resolve the conflict. This will happens when she and Ghost Dog start on the road to Ireland to keep the great evil sealed away. Lastly, we come to Resolution. This will be when they finally arrive and fix the problem with the warden. Whew, that was easy!
3. POINT OF VIEW - Time to decide what we are going to write the story in... Since this is going to be a longer narrative, I will definitely be choosing third person omniscient. I've chosen this style because I want to be free to be in everyone's heads during my narrative. This will allow my freedom since I don't have one protagonist but two, to dumpster dive into each of their heads at any point.
4. SETTING - Well, since I chose to make this Urban Fantasy, most of this will happen in a city setting. Now, I could do a bunch of studying up on another city and try my best to make it sound authentic, but I think I'm going to go with Kansas City since I live in the area. Of course, they will eventually travel to Ireland where I will have to research a good area. Beyond physical location, I should start thinking about things like time period (modern), societal conditions (current), and any weather conditions that may affect the story.
5. CONFLICT - Now I have to work out my conflict for the story. There will end up being two types of conflict in my story. The first and most obvious will be HUMAN vs HUMAN. This will be the pitting of Theresa and Ghost Dog against Gary. This will be the major conflict of the story. A minor conflict that will also be part of the story is HUMAN vs SELF. It will be Theresa's internal struggle against the belief that she can't do what she is being asked to do. It will also be present in Ghost Dog when his confidence is shaken.
6. TONE - This is the emotional content of the story. I'm going to go for a somber/anxious tone throughout the story, which will help with the themes of sacrifice and time working against them.

Character Arcs

I've asked myself the essential questions, I've got the scaffolding up to build a great story structure. So, now I have to start really designing the architecture of my story. The first one I'm going to tackle is my character arcs.

Part of building a fascinating character is giving them powerful character arcs. Character arcs are the spiritual or emotional journey that a character must endure through the course of the story. Like in real life, they can be positive or negative, sometimes both. So, let's figure out some character arcs!

So, for Theresa, I'm going to have two character arcs, each one resolved through the course of the story. The first one will be her battle against her anxiety and low self-esteem. It will cause her to not act within the story, torn by indecision. By the end of the story, through her journey, she will be a more confident, capable, young woman. The second will be a minor bit of unrequited attraction to Ghost Dog. Theresa falls for him because she has spent her entire life in a fantasy life within her head and Ghost Dog seems to be the knight in shining armor that she has been waiting for. This has a negative impact on her throughout the story as she acts like a starry-eyed mooncalf. It will be resolved before the end of the story but I will keep that under my hat for now.

Ghost Dog will have one major character arc which will be a negative arc. His unwillingness to compromise and his willful use of brute force to answer situations will lead to problems for the character within the story.

Now, these are by no means the only character arcs within the story, some of the minor characters have their own arcs, but I can't reveal everything to you! I want you to read the story at the end.

Subplots

Subplots are secondary stories that are happening during the narrative that does not necessarily intersect with the main plot. It is important that you do not have too many subplots as they can distract from the main plot. Even when they intersect with the plot. I will have two subplots. One will be running concurrently with the main plot line. It will have to do with the Princess Eversil. I will have her subplot intersect the main plotline towards the end of the story. The second plotline will be a romantic subplot between Theresa and her friend Jessica that will mirror Theresa's character arc with Ghost Dog. I am doing this to call attention to the absurdity of her lamenting her situation with Ghost Dog, who doesn't notice her desires. We will discuss this further in the next section.

Literary Devices

Literary devices are techniques writers use to produce a special effect in their writing. Examples of literary devices are alliteration/assonance (the repeating of sounds in words that are closely grouped together), metaphor (comparisons made of unlikely duos "Passive voice is a witch in Salem to some writers"), or foreshadowing.

At this point, I'm going to look at some of the literary devices that I would have to set up use. In the previous section, I talked about a minor subplot of Jessica's infatuation with Theresa and using it as dramatic irony for Theresa's own infatuation with Ghost Dog. I have also decided to pepper the story with motifs of time and sacrifice. Finally, I have decided to use foreshadowing within my story.

Now the reason I am deciding whether I am using these literary devices here is that I want to be consistent with my usage of them throughout my narrative. The motif of time and sacrifice needs to be shown from beginning to end to actually have an effect on the audience. It would not be good to put the foreshadowing in a chapter before the resolution of the story.

There will, of course, be literary devices that you use on the fly, onomatopoeia comes to mind, but these benefit by you knowing that you are going to use them ahead of time.

Tomorrow I will start plotting my chapters and working further on fleshing out my character arcs, subplots, and literary devices to fully integrate them into the story.