HEAVEN’S VIEW: METHOD FOR THE EXTREME PANTSER PART 2
If you missed Part 1: get it here.
Character Points
The second part of the Heaven’s View method is the lead characters’ briefs. For the Extreme Pantser, you may not need, or even want, to know a significant amount of detail about your protagonist and antagonist before you begin writing. However, you must know enough to justify their existence. For the Pantser, Pantser-Plotter, Plotter, and Extreme Plotter, you need a starting point to help them develop as you build your storyline.
Key Components
To make sure we are all starting out on the same page, I want to touch briefly on a few key foundational understandings about the major actors and their story, before we move on to building our Character Points.
Your Protagonist
Who is the protagonist? It would be an oversimplification to say that the protagonist is the hero, or main character of the story, because that is not always the case. What we can say is that the protagonist must center the story and move it forward, and they need to face choices that, in the end, define the plot. Personally, I believe that writer Stephen Koch summed it up best when he defined the protagonist as “the character whose fate matters most to the story.”
Your Antagonist
Who is the antagonist? Again, it is far too simple to say that the antagonist is just the villain, bad-guy, or the opposite of the protagonist, because that is not always true either. Perhaps the antagonist isn’t even a person, or character, at all. What we can say is that the antagonist creates the resistance. That resistance could be against the protagonist directly, but it does not have to be. The antagonist might also be the creator of resistance towards the story itself, moving forward in some significant way.
I think one of the most important, and most often overlooked, points when examining the antagonist is that they must be at least as strong, if not stronger, than your protagonist. The stronger you make the antagonist, the more naturally you create for the reader a comparison that strengthens your protagonist. Personally, I find it helpful to always keep in mind that the antagonist believes themself to be the hero in their own story and should therefore be given due thought and consideration.
We could spend a lifetime studying the significance and uses of the protagonist and antagonist in the writing craft, and there are those that do. However, it is beyond both the intended scope of this work and the necessity of this vantage viewpoint to go beyond these stated principles.
Their Story
Over the years, I have heard many writers sum up the question of “what makes up a story” in similar wording that, frankly, all boil down to much the same idea. Unfortunately, this makes the following very hard to attribute to one specific author. All I can really say is that this is the wording that has stuck with me, and I didn’t invent it.
That said, moving forward, we are going to define “story” as this: How what happens affects someone in pursuit of a difficult goal and how they change as a result. Which we can then break down as this: How what happens (the plot) affects someone (the character) in pursuit of a difficult goal (story problem) and how they change as a result (story outcome).
Heaven’s View Character Point
Let’s see how our previous story point fits in with our character point breakdown and prepares us to take it to another level.?
What happens…?
This is our story’s plot. You could simply take your “what if… but… which results in…” exercise answer and plug it in here. If you find yourself satisfied simply doing this, it highlights something important; you just might be an Extreme Pantser. However, for most of us, we need more detail. To that end, we will create what I call your “Protagonist Pitch.”
Your Protagonist Pitch involves you taking your previous brief initial story concept and expanding it until each section (what if… but… which results in…) has enough meat to be considered a pitch. It’s important to remember that these pitches should all be built from your character’s point of view. In other words, write as if you had under 3 minutes (or under 150 words per part) to pitch or sell your protagonist’s story to another person.
Affects someone… in pursuit of a goal… that results in change…
Just as with our “what if… but… which results in…,” we are trying to build a conjoined coherent concept to answer these questions as they relate to a specific character, in this case our protagonist. We begin by examining our plot and asking how these external events internally affect our protagonist, as they try to achieve what external goal that ends in what internal change.
Remember, we are building our character points here. While we know there are going to be external effects and external changes for our characters, we want to leave resolving those in our story points. So, let’s dig deep and examine our protagonist from within and breathe a little life into them.
For example, let’s look in on our young woman that suddenly finds herself wealthy and try to apply this equation. How about:
Our young woman, who has struggled with poverty and dreams of a life with wealth now finds herself with a great deal of money and a moral quandary, and, as she struggles to find a way to spend herself happy and justify her new wealthy lifestyle regardless of how it was funded, which forces her to realize that the money is making her ugly both inside and out and that she was a far better and happier person when she was poor as she works to reclaim her former self.
Now it’s your turn.
Exercise 2: Words in Action
As we move ahead, we are going to continue to dig deeper into developing more about character building, just as we are going to expand on our outlining methodology. However, for the Extreme Pantser, I find this is just about as much boxing in as they can take. For everyone else, this is a great place to start flushing out character highlights and giving them some depth.
Step 1
In step 1, I want you to go over your “what if… but… which results in…” scenario and try to expand it to include a few more key story details. If you just can’t do it, or you feel the work is perfect as it stands, then keep it, you Extreme Pantser you. For the rest of us, let’s expand our outline a bit. But remember, this is still the highest-level view. I highly recommend that you keep each part (what if… but… which results in…) at 150 words or less.
Step 2
In step 2, I want you to create your “affects character… in pursuit of a goal… that results in change…” for your protagonist. Try to make it all one connected experience. If it helps, I like to formulate it like this: Our protagonist (insert verb choice and what’s affected…) as they (their external goal…) which forces them to (their internal change…).
Step 3
Now that you have gotten to know more about your protagonist, it’s time to develop some defining edges to your antagonist. In step 3, I want you to go back and work with exercise 1, only this time it’s your antagonist’s tale. Please note, it’s important that you really let yourself go and not simply write a reactive character to your protagonist.
I like to think of it this way: Darth Vader was a deep, stand-alone character in his own right. His character was not just the antithesis to Luke. He had his own story, his own goals, his own challenges, and his own changes. You could just as easily tell the entire story from his perspective as the hero who was fighting to save the world from rebel scum right up until the end. It’s only then that he has the final confrontation with the “antagonist” Luke, where he faces a choice and change. I advise that you take some time to make your antagonist just as developed and memorable.
Extra Credit
I highly recommend that you expand your new antagonist “what if… but… which results in…” and include our “affects character… in pursuit of a goal… that results in change…” deeper character outline. As I said before, a good antagonist needs to believe they are the hero of their own story. Your audience may never need to know all the details that affect and give your antagonist depth, but you should.
The Extreme Pantser
If I am an Extreme Pantser, I am now ready to begin writing. I have a story premise, a protagonist, an antagonist, some tension and a catalyst for change. It’s time to start on page 1, and let the story reveal itself to me as I push forward to the last page. I think of this method as being in a car on a dark night with the cruise control set, and I have only my headlights to illuminate just what is directly in front of me. I have no map of where I am headed, and the vehicle decides when things slow down or speed up.
One of the primary advantages of this style of novel writing is that it can be extremely exciting and fun—the extreme sport version of writing, if you will. You are just as surprised as the reader will be as the story develops and characters reveal themselves. If you start off with a strong “What If - But - Which results in” scenario, and a good protagonist and antagonist, you are left with an entire world of possibilities as the tale unfolds one event after another.
One of the major disadvantages of the Extreme Pantser writing style is that this is the method that holds the most overall risk. Around every curve is the distinct possibility that you may find the vehicle drove you right into an inescapable dead end. Further, if you do manage to make it to the end, you may well find an editing nightmare. However, high risk can equal high reward, and this method can result in a creative masterpiece.
I find the greatest danger for the Extreme Pantser is finding yourself with a ton of stories that simply end up in an overflowing filing cabinet marked “some day to finish.” If you find this happening, maybe consider the possibility that you may not be an Extreme Pantser after all, and move on to another camp.
Once you have finished your exercises, I urge you to continue on to the next section. However, if you truly believe yourself to be an Extreme Pantser, I want to wish you well on your journey of discovery. You can skip ahead to the 90-day writing challenge. Ready… Set… Go Write!
For the rest of us, we are now going to examine what I call the “Bird’s-eye View: Method for the Pantser.”
Thanks for reading. If you would like to show your appreciation or contribute to my continued work, please consider buying me a coffee here. As always, you can find my work and podcasts at jnathaniellee.com.
?Listen to the podcast here:?Novel in You Episodes — Leeward Podcast Productions (leewardpodcasting.com)?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?
?