Happy Ending...etc

A few words in our soup about a single novel versus a series. In a series, the first book will have a climax and could have a resolution pertaining to that story, however, there has to be a “loose end” a plot point that isn’t resolved so the reader will go on to the next book.

?????In the first book of my Wicked Will series, All the World’s a Stage, the climax occurs with the finding of the missing ruby, one of the enchanted stones Will needs on the quest. There is a resolution that solves the mystery of who stole it and why. Yet all is not wrapped up in a neat bow. Will has three other enchanted stones to find, and his father’s life is on the line because the crown arrested him as a traitor. The witch Sycorax is still a threat and on the hunt for the lost stones.

?????In book two Murder Most Foul, Will meets 21-year-old Walter Raleigh, a student at Middle Temple, built by the Knights Templar in the 13th century. Now a college, a student’s murder sets detectives, Will and Betts, on the hunt for the killer. The climax occurs when Will solves the mystery of who killed the student and the reason. Also he finds the Stone of Earth. This part is the resolution of book two. However, the Stone of Air also known as the Holy Grail is still missing. His father, having escaped from prison, is on the run and the witch is hunting Will. Those unanswered plot points hopefully spur on the reader to the third book.

In This Rough Magic, Will and Betts travel to Milan and meet Leonardo da Vinci’s nephew who aspires to be an artist like his long-dead uncle. Within Leonardo’s journals of inventions and alchemy lay clues to the fourth stone. The plot involves finding the last two stones and the kidnapping of Queen Elizabeth that sends Will and Betts to her rescue. The stones recovered and the queen saved is the resolution of the third book but not the resolution of the series.

The ultimate climax of the series is a confrontation of sword and sorcery with the witch. The resolution is Will and his family reunited.

I hope you are not put off by what seems complicated by all this plot structure. Start out simply by writing down the story you have in mind. Don’t worry about any of the things we’ve discussed, not right now. Once your story is on paper you can go back and fiddle.

?????Your story may open with Exposition, something the reader needs to know about your character, locale, era…etcetera. You will start your story with your hero’s normal circumstances.

?????Then you will introduce “the call to adventure” what happens to interfere or change those circumstance and sets the hero off on the quest.

?????Often times in a novel the hero has to find something of vital importance, the bomb, the top-secret papers, stolen money. Sometimes the object is not really important. What is important is the story…the journey the hero takes to find the object. The famed director Alfred Hitchcock coined the term, The MacGuffin.

?????The MacGuffin is the object that springs the characters—either the good guys or the bad guys—into action. Those characters are after something, and there are overwhelming odds in the way of the goal. That object in itself is not important because the story is not about the object it’s about the quest for the object. The hero goes from one action to another. In a mystery this might be various clues that the hero follows, in a romance maybe its different romantic partners, in a thriller multiple confrontations with bad guys and so on.

The climax comes when the detective solves the mystery, the romance culminates in a wedding; the good cop defeats the villain in a hail of bullets.

?????The falling action and resolution the detective gets a pat on the back for a job well done and goes on to his or her next case; the newlyweds go on to happily ever after; the good cop gets a promotion or decides to retire to a tropical beach. It’s all there in your mind and we’ve just gone over some tools to help you put it on paper. Happy Writing!