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Act 2

  Conflict (rising tension)

  High point and darkest moment

  Act 3

  Climax

  Resolution

  The 3 act plot arc structure is a common formula that works for many popular films and novels really well, so for the short story we may need to tweak it a bit or even quite a bit. But to do this successfully we need to understand the underpinning psychology of why the formula creates rising tension and holds the reader or audience spellbound to a high degree. We can use a sporting analogy as a reference point to explain this underpinning psychology. Let’s think of a tug of war contest.

  Act 1 is the set-up and the inciting incident or challenge.

  The two teams get ready. The game begins. One team screams out a challenge to the other and tugs hard on the rope (antagonist does the challenging) pulling the other team (protagonist) toward the line. It is aggressive and confrontational but exciting for the spectators (reader, in our case).

  Act 2 is the middle part with conflict and rising tension, and has a high point and darkest moment.

  The challenged team (protagonist) might manage to pull the other side a few feet forward, but then the challengers (antagonist) dig deep and pull the challenged team forward close to the line. This exciting to-ing and fro-ing is constantly forcing up the tension. The most exciting moments come round possibly three times, so it’s like three little scenes of conflict within the overall match. The challenged team (protagonist) pull the other side right to the line (high point) and it looks like they’ve got it won. But the challengers recover, and soon drag the challenged team toward the line. One of the members of this team slips and falls, releasing his hold on the rope. Surely they’ve lost now. (Here is the darkest moment for the protagonist.)

  Act 3 is the climax and resolution.

  The losing team (protagonist) suddenly finds its second strength. It pulls back hard and regains a step. The other side pulls back hard. Another fierce struggle ensues, but this time the challenged team (protagonist) pulls its opponents over the line in a nail-biting finish (climax). The winning team get their medals and everyone shakes hands (resolution).

  You don’t have to be a tug of war fan to understand this sporting analogy. It is a simple and expressive example and gets the basic points across clearly. If you were just to have a match, where within the opening seconds one team pulled the other over the line, or a match that lasted minutes but one team looked like it would win right from the start with no real balance in the struggle between the contestants, it would not be anywhere near as exciting. Of course, you can’t plan the most exciting outcome for a sport, but you can for a story.

  Although the conflict here is described in physical terms, the same rules apply if the conflict is psychological or emotional. The emotional plot in a story has its challenges, its conflicts, its ups and downs and its bruises and tears just like in the physical plot.

  CHAPTER 2

  Sayings

  In this chapter, we are going to think of a saying as a means of both inspiration and guidance for developing our short story ideas. To this end, we will analyse a saying and then follow it with a story plan based on an idea we worked out of the analysis. Next we will write a 1,000 word story. This way the reader can see the whole process at work in a single go. We will also look at some other short story ideas that this saying inspires.

  To be certain the reader acquires a good understanding of how to work with appropriate sayings, we will examine two other examples and create early draft story plans out of their analysis. Anchor words are introduced in this section.

  THE SAYING

  The type of saying examined here expresses universal nuanced truths or wisdom in an ironic and often witty way. The saying usually sets the reader up for an expectation in the first half that is not met in the second. Instead, we get something unexpected – an ironic twist. The effect is to jolt the reader into seeing the truth or wisdom (message or theme) of the saying from a fresh and poignant perspective that they would not otherwise have thought about in quite this way, if they had ever thought about it at all.

  ANALYSING THE SAYING

  For our purposes, our saying will have at least some of the main storytelling elements, especially character, and also the potential for exploiting others.

  Here is the saying:

  On passing a graveyard, I am always reminded of one of life’s great tragedies: headstones are full of dull facts and second rate poetry.

  Character here is in the first person, which is promising. This first person POV (point of view) challenges convention by making a witty and unusual attack on a single but important aspect surrounding the tradition of respecting and remembering the dead. So he has grabbed our attention.

  At first glance, there seems to be no conflict potential. And yet, the character’s perspective and opinion is at great odds with the convention he is criticizing. Therefore, the potential for conflict is huge. For example, supposing he expressed his opinion out loud at a sensitive moment, like during a burial?

  Let’s look at irony, wit and the twist together. In the first clause, we are being set up to think that the second clause will deliver something big and meaningful about our mortal existence: On passing a graveyard, I am always reminded of one of life’s great tragedies. Instead, ironically, the second clause gives us something seemingly petty and irrelevant: headstones are full of dull facts and second rate poetry. Suddenly, we are thrown into a spin. The second clause is so unexpected and irreverent that it makes us laugh. However, this second clause is possibly not saying something petty at all. It certainly has a ring of truth about it. Perhaps there is yet more irony here. This sort of stuff certainly gives us thoughts for our story idea.

  Does the saying have drama? Drama is conflict fuelled by the addition of moral choices. If we look at what we said about conflict, and we consider there might be moral questions involved in this conflict, and it is certainly possible that might be so, then the potential for drama is clear.

  Whatever theme you may read into the saying, it obviously doesn’t have to be the same theme that emerges from the story. Here the theme revolves around the belief that death is actually treated quite lightly in so far as it concerns the writing on a headstone.

  The setting doesn’t have to be in a graveyard. But it’s an obvious choice here.

  A PLAN BASED ON THE ANALYSIS

  The saying can act simply as a source of inspiration for imaginative, insightful and credible ideas. We don’t have to stick closely to our analysis for our story’s plan; we don’t have to be guided strongly by it. If it prompts something very different and preferable for us, then we should go for it.

  But here we are sticking closely to our analysis for our story’s plan. Our story will revolve around headstones, or more precisely, what is written on them, and the reaction of one character to them. As much as possible, we will keep faithful to the actual saying, though due to its extreme pithiness we obviously have to develop elements like plot and storyline from scratch.

  Set-up

  A new couple are visiting her grandma’s grave. He’s a poet (story from his POV, third person). He empathizes with her story regarding her grandma’s last months. Her story is touching and poignant, revealing good and enduring memories of her grandmother.

  Inciting incident (kicks the plot into gear)

  When he reads her grandma’s headstone, something alarms him. He reads a neighbouring headstone, and his alarm increases.

  Middle part (rising tension; suspense begins here, too)

  She sees him upset. Talk about her grandmother as well as being in the cemetery have brought back sad memories for him, she says. He denies this, wants her to stop focusing on him. He asks her to continue telling him about her grandmother.

  Middle part (tension rising higher)

  Finally, they start to retrace their steps. Sometimes they stop and she reads out loud from the headstones. This really causes him discomfort. She’s aware of his discomf
ort and wants him to confide in her. She feels it’s related to a past tragedy of his. But he doesn’t want to tell her the truth of what’s causing his discomfort. It’s her time, her moment, her visit to her grandmother’s grave, and he feels she’d find him shallow or trying to be too clever if he told her the truth. But he feels pressured into saying something; so to explain his discomfort he spins a tale about an old flame dying tragically young.

  Middle part: high point and darkest moment (tension higher still)

  She accepts this lie, though he knows she really thinks his discomfort is evidence he’s not over his old flame. The lie makes him feel bad, but at least she’s off his back about the true root of his discomfort. Or so he thinks. Soon she reminds him of something he told her that seems to contradict part of his lie. Caught in the headlights, he has a moment of panic. But he keeps his cool and manages to bluff it out.

  Climax and resolution

  Outside the cemetery, the reader finds out what’s really on his mind. Her grandmother’s story was beautiful. Why wasn’t it on the grave showing the sort of woman she was? Why not the same sort of thing on the other headstones, too? Imagine that! An individual story on every headstone, keeping poignantly alive the memory of those buried beneath. Instead, all these dead souls are condemned to an eternity of dull facts and second rate poetry by their headstones. As a poet, it broke his heart to see it.

  THE STORY

  Headstones

  Entering the cemetery, she smiled and squeezed his hand. “I might get a little emotional.”

  “I’d be alarmed if you didn’t.”

  She laughed. “I like that about you.” He raised an eyebrow. “Your dry sense of humour. Poets don’t usually do humour well.” Now both his eyebrows arched. “I’ve dated poets before. They’re so intense. Maybe all that profound writing makes them so. Or maybe it’s the other way round.”

  “I might be just like them and you don’t know me well enough yet,” he said, but giving her a big smile.

  She placed some roses on her grandmother’s grave, and said, “I was just ten. I’d spent the whole summer holidays with her… then in the autumn… she’d been sick for a while. She always… had a smile… I never suspected. Yet she was in daily pain. My God! She was dying and I… was playing carefree each day. Mother… both decided my holiday mustn’t be spoiled… our final days together would be happy ones.” A tear rolled down her cheek. She wiped it away. “Sorry.”

  He took her in his arms. Over her shoulder, his eyes focused on her grandmother’s headstone.

  “Grandma was knitting me a jumper. Evenings, I’d watch her for hours mixing colours into the pattern, the coloured balls of wool resting in my hands. The jumper has a wonderful Celtic design, incredibly difficult to get right. But it fit me beautifully, the pattern flawless. It smelt wonderful, felt so soft. I outgrew it too quickly. I still have it. One day, my daughter will wear it, if... It will link her to grandma.”

  With his eyes fixed on the headstone, a frown creased his brow.

  “I can still remember her knitting needle going through its movements over and over, never slowing or tiring, reminding me of the workings of a clock. I thought she’d go on knitting forever. I often fell asleep watching her, the wool still in my hands. Looking back, I see she so much wanted to finish it! The last thing she would knit… her parting gift to me.”

  She fell silent. His eyes strayed to a neighbouring headstone. His frown deepened.

  She pulled away from him, smiling awkwardly. “Told you I might get a little emotional.”

  He just nodded now, glancing at the headstone the other side of her grandmother’s grave. A dull light filled his eyes.

  “I’ve upset you,” she said. “I never thought about your life, your past sadness. My own, this place, reminds you of yours.”

  Colour rose to his cheeks. “No.” She stroked his cheek and studied his eyes. His colour deepened. “Tell me more about your grandmother!”

  For several moments, she kept her eyes on him. Then she turned back to her grandma’s headstone, recounting more.

  Finally, linking her arm in his, they began retracing their steps.

  They paused at several headstones, she reading out loud from them. At the first, he pulled at his shirt collar; the second time, at the corners of his mouth. At the third, a sad, almost weary sigh escaped him.

  She gazed at him. “You’re thinking of the past. Someone dear to you.”

  He tightened his jaw. “It’s just that…” then clamped his mouth shut.

  She pushed him, “Yes?”

  He shook his head. Why had he opened his mouth? Now he’d whetted her curiosity. He struggled unsuccessfully to prevent more colour flooding his cheeks. She stroked his hand. Her eyes shone brighter, expectantly. She wanted a return for her own display of emotion. As a poet, surely he understood, he could almost hear her say. If he refused, she’d never forget. It would sit between them like an unpaid debt. He’d become that kind of man to her, the kind who kept his emotions buried.

  “What happened?” she asked so softly and so openly it would have been bad mannered not to give her something.

  “An old flame,” he lied, turning to another headstone. He winced, a genuine gesture. “She died too young.” He inhaled and exhaled hard. “I’m over her, but here...”

  “Past tragedies are like ghosts haunting us.”

  He almost choked on his next breath. Now she thought he was not over this non-existent dead woman.

  “It’s just this place,” he said.

  “How long since she died?”

  “Four years.”

  “I shouldn’t have brought you here.”

  Feeling on safer ground, he said, “I wanted to come.”

  Suddenly, his body felt drained of energy. He should have just told her! He swallowed, feeling his throat tight, painful. But could he take the risk of offending her? This visit was about her, not him and his dry sense of humour. Too late now, anyway; he’d committed himself to a lie. Why had she pushed him into it? He felt dishonest, hollow. Would her own insecurities make her pick at this thread of a dead girlfriend? She thought he’d not got over her. Yes, she would pick away at it, try to unravel it.

  Outside the graveyard, she began picking at the thread, “But you were in Germany four years ago.”

  He froze for a second, unable to swallow, his mind whirling. “That’s right. Yes, I was. She was German.”

  A moment’s pause, then, “Oh!”

  He glanced back.

  What a beautiful little tale! Why wasn’t it on the headstone? It had brought her grandmother back to life. Imagine a story like it on every headstone, each different to the others! With such a rich source of character and story, writers would haunt graveyards for inspiration.

  If he’d told her what was really on his mind, he was certain now she’d have thought him shallow, a spoiler. His humour didn’t really count here. Yet he didn’t mean to be funny. He had a serious question to ask: if the living thought so much of their dearly departed, then why condemn them by their headstones to an eternity of dull facts and second rate poetry? As a poet, it broke his heart to see it.

  SO WHAT’S THE STORY’S THEME?

  The story’s emotional journey revolves around him. When she opens up to him, he makes an attempt to sympathize with her and manages it until the dull facts and second rate poetry on the headstones distracts and disturbs this poet. Here the theme is the same as the saying’s theme where it revolves around a poet’s belief that death is actually treated quite lightly in so far as it concerns the writing on a headstone. And yet, the fact that he gets easily distracted in the midst of her sad recollections hints at an insight about everyman. No matter the tragedy seeking our attention and sympathy, if it is not our personal tragedy, we quickly lose our concentration concerning it even by minor, trivial distractions. This is the story’s deeper theme. We can say it simpler this way: it’s hard to concentrate for long on sadness or suffering that isn’t ours. />
  OTHER TYPES OF STORIES

  We used the saying as a guide to lead us into the story. Of course, once the story starts, we must be flexible as the saying’s reference points, though strong, are hardly detailed. We could have easily written another type of story here. It could have been a more outwardly physical one where the opinion regarding headstones results in a family squabble at the graveside. Someone might express an honest and heartfelt opinion about headstones in general but another family member takes it as a personal insult about a particular headstone that they themselves chose. Phrases like, “Nothing I ever do is good enough for you,” or “Well, don’t worry! I certainly know what to put on your headstone when you die. And it won’t be a lot of dull facts and second rate poetry, as you call it,” could fly thick and fast. Family grievances could escalate the row further. The story could be a serious one, a humorous one or a complete farce, but any of them could have a valid point to make.

  However, the real power of this saying lies not just in thinking of headstones as full of dull facts and second rate poetry but in the witty and ironic attack it makes on a convention that has never before been questioned. If we agree with the saying, if we actually do believe that headstones are full of dull facts and second rate poetry then the saying offers us an eye opener on other subject matter of a similar nature and therefore the chance of going in a completely different direction with our story.

  What other subject matter could we start to examine in the way the saying prompts us?

  Well, the saying suggests that in some ways we don’t take seriously enough the conventions surrounding death. The poet believes that the chance to express something important and inspiring about the dead person has been overwritten by the second rate. Could this be true of other traditions or rituals that we view with importance? Could other things we use as a means of representation be uninspiring and second rate? If so, what does this say about our attitudes at a deeper level to the ceremony or ritual?