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On August 31, 2024, Kasie and Rex took on the specifics around rising action, what is it and how is it done? Here are the show notes:

Theme for the day

Action! 

Agenda

• Quick Catch Up
• Why and where and when a story drags
• Break out of boring
• Examples of action

Segments 1 & 2

So I saw The Crow this week and the reviewer had said it was boring and I went anyway and he was right. But he didn’t say WHY it was boring. I’ll tell you. The action is good – fight scenes, murder, violence, lots of gore and suchness – that was good. But between the action was just conversations. BORING conversations.

People just talking stuff over. And it reminded me of some early criticism Rex gave me about the vampire novel. He said, it’s just people talking about stuff, not actually DOING stuff. So, if your story seems boring or other people tell you it is (they won’t but they should) it could be because your characters are just talking. Not DOING.

We’re going to use this Reedsy video as the basis for this.

“Rising Action” is all the stuff that happens between inciting incident and climax of the story. But what is the “action” part of this?

We can also unpack “rising” but I think we need the fundamentals first. Here are some tips for what kinds of action you can put in the story (from the above-linked Reedsy video):

• Tip 1: Introduce new information – if you’re not introducing new information, the scene is a waste of time and words
  • Have the character overhear a conversation and confront the speakers
  • Have the character discover an artifact of some kind
  • Have the character get into trouble and witness someone perform a feat they didn’t know they were capable of
  • Have the character read something that provides the information – a group text, an article on a website, a comment on a social media post
  • Have the character see a public display of knowledge they should have had but didn’t
  • Have another character tell your character something they think you already know
• Tip 2: Allow the character to fail – challenge them with obstacles and then let those obstacles clobber them; you also need them to succeed, obviously, but it should take effort, come at a cost
  • Have them challenge someone in a contest and lose
  • Have them get caught lying about something, or be proven to have lied about something
  • Have the character mak a bad choice and witness the bad consequences, or even experience the consequences themselves
• Tip 3: Challenge the character in some way – that allows the character arc to occur; successes and failures either correct flaws or they reinforce their flaws
  • Have them try a new skill or habit and see that skill work
  • Have them demonstrate their new ability and impress someone important
  • Force the character to choose between two bad options – go back in time or forge ahead in the current situation, save one character but doom another
  • Have the character betrayed by someone they trust – or atleast think they’re being betrayed
• Tip 4: Build character relationships – these should be related to the action, dependent upon the action, or in some way affected by the action; we should see change in the central relationships
  • Have the character do something to help another character – save the cat technique – pick up something they dropped, rescue them from bullies
  • Have the character witness a secret another character is keeping – promise to keep it, commiserate over it
  • Unite two characters against a common bad – pervy guy at the bar, bully teacher
  • Show the characters acting on the thing they have in common – same power, same opinion, same class, same job
• Tip 5: Shift the story instead of just having hurdles the character can just jump over and keep going.The obstacles should build on one another and the consequences of the choices the character made should have lasting effects.
  • Have the character reveal their secret in front of someone they don’t trust to keep it
  • Have the character follow a lead to the outcome they think they’ll get only to find a dead end and have to redirect.
  • Have the character’s assumptions prove wrong – a perfect suspect has a solid alibi, someone they think is working against them actually helps, someone they think will stay with them throughout leaves them
  • Have the character deny help – or a tool – from some source only to find later they need that tool to get to the next stage.

Segment 3

Let’s talk about action in some classic stories so we can point out what we mean by “not just two characters talking.”

1. In Gone With the Wind – Scarlett throws herself at Ashley and Rhett Butler witnesses it; Scarlett marries Charles Hamilton to spite Ashley; Scarlett goes to Atlanta to live with Melanie and dances with Rhett Butler at the bazaar; Scarlett helps Melanie’s baby come and then travels back to Tara only to find it desolated; Scarlett works like a field hand to bring Tara back from devastation; Scarlett goes back to Atlanta to ask Rhett for money and marries Frank Kennedy.
2. In Casablanca – Rick accepts the stolen papers and hides them; Rick acknowledges Victor Laslow by having a drink with him; Rick helps the young couple win at gambling so they can buy their way out of Casablanca – crossing Louis’s intentions to extort them; Rick agrees to help Ilsa by giving the papers to Victor, only to decide she needs to get on the plane, too.

There’s this great conversation between the creators and writers of South Park where they say between every beat in your story, the words should be “therefore” or “but.” Never “and then.”

• So, Scarlett throws herself at Ashley but he rejects her; Rhett Butler overhears it, therefore he knows her secret.
• Scarlett moves to Atlanta to be with Melanie, but Ashley is there for Melanie, not Scarlett; therefore, Scarlett looks after Melanie, too.
• Scarlett tries to trick Rhett into giving her the tax money, but he sees through her ruse and mocks her; therefore, her pride drives her to manipulate another man, Frank Kennedy, into marriage to get the money she needs.
• Or, Rick recognizes Victor Laslow but he has history with Ilsa. Therefore Rick won’t just sell the papers to Laslow.

As I’m working through the beats of the vampire novel, I’m trying to flip the “and thens” into “but” and “therefore.”

This happens, therefore that. But, this other thing happens, therefore that.

Pride and Prejudice: Lizzy overhears Darcy saying she’s barely tolerable, therefore she delivers a zinger and stalks out of the ball; but when she follows her sister to Netherfield, she experiences Darcy as a compassionate person, therefore she attempts friendship with him.

Is this structure calculated and intentional? Or does it just happen naturally as you’re writing? Does the story just unfold?

I ask because my first two novels had specific destinations and the outcomes of each scene were plodding toward the expected final condition of the main character. At one point, in Before Pittsburgh, I juxtapose two scenes in Nashville a year apart so the reader can see Brian’s maturity, and two scenes in LA a year apart for the same purpose. But that book wasn’t a plot-driven book.

So here I am, writing a very plot-driven book in the vampire novel, and I’m worried I have a lot of “then this happened” scenes and not the “but” and “therefore” structure I need to have. Can that be buoyed in revision? Or did it need to be part of the original outline?