The Place For My Writers Notes

Original posting 11 December 2008

Just a quick quirky thought.

I was contemplating that description of writing -- the one that goes "put your character in a tree, throw rocks at him, and then get him down out of the tree?" (hum? Can't find a source, but there's a version of it at http://paulgorman.org/cheatsheets/fiction_plots.shtml and various other places -- one attributes it to "some wise old scribe")

Anyway, it struck me that the final phrase is poorly phrased. See, as a writer, that last phrase really should be "then show him getting himself out of the tree." It's important that the protagonist be the person taking the action in the end, not having it imposed on him -- by the author, narrator, Momma nature, or whatever. That's one of the ways to have the story dribble away in sadness -- just make the protagonist a puppet being played by the ending, rather than an active part of it.

So -- get your hero in a tree? That can be imposed, and fairly often is. Throw rocks at him? Again, external sources of those flying shards of fate are perfectly adequate. But the grande finale comes when the hero gets himself out of the tree -- by flying into the sunset, jumping to a broken leg, slithering through the branches, or some other amazing method, but the hero does it himself.

Watcha think?

Okay?
Write!

And spin, and kick, and step, two, three, four . . .