The Event Story

**The ideas here come from Orson Scott Card in How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. This is my take on them.**

Last but certainly not least is the Event Story. In an event story, something is amiss with the order of the universe. It can be pretty much anything. The Lord of the Rings is the reappearance of an ancient and powerful evil. Hamlet's disruption is the assassination of the king. The story ends either when a new order is established or when things return to the old one.


White Echoes is such an Event Story. The disruption is the conspiracy. The story is about bringing those responsible for it to justice. It's about revealing their actions to the world. 


It's important to note that narration-wise, the Event Story doesn't start with the disruption. It starts when the main character comes in contact with it. The Lord of the Rings starts when Frodo learns about the ring's power (or close enough). Hamlet doesn't start with the assassination, but with Hamlet learning from the ghost that his uncle is behind his father's death. 

Most fantasy stories fall under this category. Most of my project do. It's a flexible structure and while you might not have a Milieu story, I believe the event one allows you to show this setting you built with so much care through this disruption.

The Character Story

**The ideas here come from Orson Scott Card in How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. This is my take on them.**

Aah, Character. How often have we been asked, as writers, if we're more plot-driven or character-driven? I'm of the opinion a character should always drive the plot – that is, he should be proactive. This doesn't mean he consciously chose to be a part of the events. A character might be proactive if he takes a few actions and, before he knows it, he's in a big mess. This is what happens to Richard Mayhew in Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman. He stops to save a dirty, bleeding girl on the street, and is irremediably pulled into the story.

In a Character Story, however, the character is the plot. A character story will be about a character's attempt to change himself or his relation to others. He might be discontent with his current role in the family or close neighbourhood. He might hate what he's become and try to change himself.

The character story starts when your main character decides to make these changes and ends either in his success or failure. A father who attempts to reconcile with his son after a decade is a character story. He might succeed and grow closer to his son, or his attempts might be constantly rebuffed until he abandons them.

My February Shiny Idea, Fezim Aulm, is a Character Story. It begins with the MC’s admittance in a wizard asylum and his decision to ‘fix himself’ as much as he can, and it ends with his acceptance that while he might change, he can never make up for his past actions. There is a lot happening, but my story structure milestones revolve around his character evolution and, in planning my novel, I often relied on James Scott Bell’s character layers.

While I find the Character Story structure is rarer in fantasy as the main one, it's quite often there as a subplot. After all, events of the magnitude of what your throw at your characters should change them. That's the whole fun of it!


The point of a Character Story is this change. The character arc doesn't support the main plot. It is the main plot. 

The Idea Story

**The ideas here come from Orson Scott Card in How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. This is my take on them.**

More than any other, the Idea Story raises a single question. Here, however, it is not the reader that asks this question, it's the character.

Most mystery novels follow this structure. The main character, the detective, seeks to discover who killed the victim. The story begins with a murder and ends when the culprit is found.

Mysteries aren't the only one with this structure, however. A story in which a character is trying to uncover the downfall of a powerful civilisation is an idea story. 2001: A Space Odyssey is an idea story. The question raised is "Who buried this monolith and why is it emitting a radio signal?"

If White Echoes focused on discovering the conspiracy, it'd be an idea story. Rather than giving my main character the information and watch him act upon it, I would bring him to make these crucial discoveries. It would begin with the first hint of a second layer to the events and the climax would be the full understanding of what happened.

With an idea story, you want to introduce the mystery early on. An interesting character and an intriguing world will enhance your novel, but your main concern is this question raised and your structure will revolve around finding an answer. You cannot end the story without that answer.

Again, if any of you follow this structure, raise your hands! I rather enjoy learning more about your respective WIP. 

The Milieu Story

**The ideas here come from Orson Scott Card in How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy. This is my take on them.**

The milieu story is about the setting. It's the world surrounding your character, the weather, the family, the society, the pantheon. Everything you bring out during world building. These stories are often about travellers stuck in a distant land. Can the character return home safely? Will he choose to live in this new place?

A lot of fantasy is in this category. Any story about a character going through a portal and discovering a wild, strange land is a milieu story. Say hi to Alice in Wonderland, everyone. Unless I'm mistaken, Narnia also falls into this category.

If your main concern is the discovery of a world (through a series of other events, of course), then you are writing a milieu story. Chances are, your POV character is the stranger, who'll experience the wonders of your setting at the same time as your reader.

Other examples given by Orson Scott Cards are Gulliver's Travels and Shogun.

My original ideas for Edingher were of a milieu story. Most of the plotline happened at sea or on a small archipelago, whose culture and magic differed from everything the MC had seen before. There is still some of this discovery plotline in Edingher, but it now serves another type of story.

I'm curious, is anyone writing a milieu story? Can you think of any others?

Choosing a Beginning and an End

The network of ideas that make a story is a complex web that sometimes reaches far back in time. When you examine everything that leads to your novel's events – the entirety of a story – it's easy to lose track of what the actual narration should be.

White Echoes, for example, is Henry's fight to bring to light a conspiracy that led to the death of thousands civilians, a decade ago. We're already ten years back into time. But what about the events that led to this conspiracy? They involve a war, which is another decade (or about) earlier, in which the villains' brother dies. But even that isn't enough. This death wouldn't bring about the same consequences had my two villains been different people. The events that shape their personality are part of this novel, too.

It's what is called backstory.

So where to start? Where to end? It all depends on what you want this story to be about. There is one constant, however: you should raise a question at the beginning, and only end your novel when it is answered.

I made White Echoes about Henry's struggle. The question is "Can Henry Schmitt uncover the conspiracy?" His decision to try comes at the start(ish) of the story. It's my First Plot Point. Readers will expect to know of his success or failure by the end.

If I'd wanted to make the novel about the villains, the beginning would feature scenes of their youth. I'd establish their characters and kick the action proper with the brother's death. The question raised is different (it'd be related to their goal in all this) and thus, the answer must be, too.

The type of question you raise – the conflict you'll want to resolve – will be bring about a different type of story. Orson Scott Card outlines four types in How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy, the MICE – Milieu, Idea, Character, Event.

Any story will have more than one of these elements, and I think it should have all of them to some degree. One, however, will predominate and determine what type of question you need to answer before the end.

The MICE story structures are what will occupy most of the next two weeks. Hope you find it interesting!

Protagonists, Main Characters and Viewpoint Characters

Yesterday, I learned these weren't the same thing. Well, I knew about the viewpoint character already, but I always considered the other two terms to be the same. Orson Scott Card establishes a clear distinction between Main Character and Protagonist, however, which I believe is great to keep in mind.

Yes, most of the time, you'll want your MC to be your protagonist. But this doesn't have to be the case, and it can enhance your story to make them different. So what's the difference?

Protagonist: The protagonist is the character we're rooting for. He has our sympathy. We agree with his goals and we want him to win by the end of the novel. If your MC is a hero type, he'll be the protagonist, too. Star Wars' protagonists are Luke, Leia and Han Solo.

Main Character: The Main Character is the character whose actions are driving the plot. His character evolution and final decisions will decide of the novel's end. He has everyone's fate in his hands. If your protagonist is proactive, he's likely to be the main character, too.

Sometimes, however, the main character is the villain. This is true for Star Wars. Luke and co. spend the first two movies reacting to what Darth Vader does. And what is the third's climax? When Vader chooses his son over the Empire.

Viewpoint Character: Sometimes it's best when the viewpoint character is neither the protagonist nor the main character. In mysteries, for example, the POV character is often a sidekick, because the detective knows the murderer a fair bit before the climax (think Doctor Watson and Sherlock here). Most of the time it's advisable to keep the POV on either the MC or the protagonist, however, as this is where the action will be.