Resistance
In the monthly writing groups I run, there’s about forty-five minutes at the start of each session, after the participants share a little about how their writing months have gone, when I do some teaching. I’m never quite sure what I’m going to cover or talk about each month, until about two weeks before, when I begin to wonder and then something arises, either out of the submissions or full manuscript reads I’ve been reading, or a problem in my own writing I’ve been grappling with, which I feel could be helpful for others to hear about. (As well as my eventual solution to the problem, one would hope.)
But as I said, I often don’t plan much in advance, and the people in my groups have come to realise – because I tell them – that they are often serving as guinea pigs for a new exercise I’ve dreamed up, whose usefulness I am really not sure of until I try it out with real writers.
Mostly it works out, and people seem to take something useful away from the work. And occasionally, an exercise or idea seems to really resonate and catch fire in the group, which is great – always nice to feel useful.
Today I thought I’d share one of those successful teachings. Which is to do with RESISTANCE.
It seems to me in every story (if it’s worth telling) there is a shining bright band of resistance, which carries on all the way through to the climax. What do I mean by this? I mean something the protagonist, or each protagonist if there are multiple, is RESISTING with all their might.
For example, Othello is resisting suspicion of his wife.
Hamlet is resisting revenge.
Romeo and Juliet are resisting…reality.
In tragedies, the protagonist is often resisting the thing that will eventally lead to his downfall, whereas in stories with happy endings, it is the thing that will bring the protagonist happiness. (Elizabeth Bennett resisting Mr Darcy.)
But either way, resistance runs through each of these storylines, and I suspect it to be true that whatever your characters are resisting in the story you have created, is tightly woven together with the reason you have for creating it, with what you want to show us to be true about some aspect of being alive.
And if there is no resistance in your Story? I suspect this might be a reason for it losing energy, and the reader’s interest.
So, to get you thinking about this, here are some Resistance Questions.
Using your protagonist, or the two or three most important characters, let’s explore:
1. What is it he or she is resisting?
2. What is the thing that happens at the start of the story, which makes this resistance become needful and sharper, if it even existed, than it was before? Did they have this resistance before this story? Can you trace its source from the events in their life up to this point?
3. What are their methods of resistance? What actions do they take in order to resist? Name a few.
4. What are the consequences, along the way, of their resistance actions? Name a few. Or if you’re not there yet, what could or might be the possible consequences of the actions they choose in order to resist?
5. At the midpoint, it may be their resistance slips for a moment – they do the mafia kill job their family has been pressuring them to do from the start – or is toppled because of some new information they receive – in Othello, the story of the white handkerchief he gave to Desdemona now being with Cassio. Or perhaps the resistance slackens when the protagonist believes it is no longer necessary, they have overcome any danger – at the midpoint they are wrong. In terms of resistance, what does the midpoint look like for your protagonist? What could it look like?
6. And how does what they are resisting play out in the details, the situation, the outcome of the climax? Leading to happiness or tragedy.
I do hope these are useful questions for you. (Don’t resist them!) And if you have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear from you. Just go to the Contact Page and click on the big finger.