My dad was always careful with his tools. When he finished using them he would clean them, oil them if necessary and store them carefully until next time. If I used a tool I’d just chuck it back on the bench somewhere and he would come along later and clean it ready for use. When I asked him why he looked after tools so carefully he replied, “Why would I bother trying to chop wood with a blunt axe?”
Good point. When it comes to deciding on a plot it’s easy enough to state a plot using the formula outlined in “Dem Bones”:
(Character) wants (goal) because (motive) but (obstacle)
But with a little extra thought you can sharpen it into something even better. By better I mean more interesting, more gripping, more intense, more emotional. Choose the adjective you would like to see enhanced in your story.
One way to state Jack and the Beanstalk’s plot might be “Jack wants the giant’s treasure because he is very poor but ….
In a lot of plots the character wants to achieve his goal for the simple reason that he isn’t like that now. Jack wants riches because he is poor, an addict wants to be clean just because she is addicted and knows it’s a rotten way to live. The goal is implicit in the way the character is at the start of the story. Good enough. It’s much better though if you up the ante. If Jack’s mother is ill and needs expensive medicine. If the addict will lose her child if she can’t get clean.
It’s better still if Jack’s mother will die without the medicine or the addict has this one last chance to keep her child.
And even better if Jack’s mother will die tonight without the medicine or the addict’s child has been pleading in tears to stay with her mother.
Each time you up the stakes you sharpen the axe; you cut right to the emotion of the story. You pull your audience in, you make your story memorable. Check your stories, anecdotes and examples to see if you can sharpen them, sharpen them again, then sharpen them some more.
It’s another tool in your story tellers toolbox.
You have a thousand stories. You just need to find them.
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