Five Act Short Story: Lesson One

In my previous blog, I explained the Five Act formula for structuring plots that William Shakespeare used for every play he ever wrote. Now I'm going to use it to outline a short story that I wrote. Thing is, though, that this short story is a story that I know well, but that I wrote badly. In outlining it, I hope I can improve it. This, being only an outline of the story, will read vaguely. Tell me how it reads to you, and if you like it.

Act I: Introduce Main Plot/Characters/Conflicts

• Main characters of this story: Trick and Moxy
• Trick: a good looking and talented boy with an overdeveloped sense of justice
• Moxy: a good looking and quiet girl who likes to think and be alive and just get along with things
• Main plot: Trick is introduced as a person who is usually kind and generous, but he has recently been controlling. That seems to Moxy to be out of character.
• Main Conflict: Trick has decided that it's his mission to rescue a boy named Hugo who gets picked on a lot. Moxy disapproves of this plan.
  

Act II: Introduce Secondary Plot/Characters/Conflicts

• Moxy likes trick, and she is suppressing it. She has a boyfriend, and she doesn't want to think of Trick that way, and he's never encouraged her to do so.
• Trick is comitted to give a speech at a club meeting tomorrow.
• Moxy's friend, Elizabeth, is introduced: she's abrasive and honest.
  

Act III: Plots Are Complicated

• Moxy refuses to talk to Trick about casual things (invitation to a party). Elizabeth calls her out on this and forces Moxy to really consider how she feels about Trick.
• Trick bails on the speech he'd comitted to give, going further against his character as Moxy understands him.
• Moxy confronts him, and becomes angry.
• Trick behaves resolutely chauvinistic.
  

Act IV: Resolution Suggested, and Described as Both Impossible and Inevitable

• Elizabeth says Trick needs to be taken down a peg.
• Seems impossible: Trick is too awesome, in the eyes of our perspective character.
• It would solve all the problems: A Trick with a lesson in humility would be a Trick restored to equilibrium.
• Maybe this would help Moxy, too.

Act V: Climax and Conclusion

• Trick gets into fight with the people who were harassing Hugo.
• And loses. Moxy genuinely fears for him.
• He realizes that he doesn't have to control everything.
• Moxy begins to actually see him for who he is.

Right. There's the story. Outlining it like this has helped me. Does it make any sense?

Next lesson: um...something good. It's a surprise!

Third submission of "Totem" and the speech

Stardate 21230.6/The Year of Our Lord 2009, September the ninth

Wednesday

Dear folks,

It was actually two days ago. On Monday. All very exciting.

This afternoon I gave an ad libbed speech on the subject of how the Dalai Lama supports the fact that civilization rests on the curiosity of writers. Giving a speech on that topic off the cuff is kind of exciting, I tell you no lie. I think I totally muffed it. I was able to speak clearly, annunciate all my words, and I managed to hit all my points and in the right order without getting lost. That was good. But it wasn't MOVING--unless it was, and I just couldn't hear it. All I know for certain is that no one laughed at the funny parts, and no one told me afterward what they thought. Now I don't know where I messed up, or if I did. I can't tell where I need improvement.

Still, it was essentially my first speechifying gig, and I actually did it. I feel like I've accomplished something today.

Sincerely,

Bouncy Mind

The Most Dangerousest Game

Yesterday, the Vikings met for the third time. Last month, in our discussion, somebody started talking about beginning stories with dialog effectively. And, as inevitably happens when talking about what we've written, he mentioned something that he'd read that he thought was a good illustration of his point. "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell, he said was the story.

A couple days later, this brilliant Viking sent me an e-mail and said, "Hey, look, I found the story I mentioned on the interwebs. What say I lead a discussion on the technique I talked about?"

I was all over that, man. It sounded like a brilliant idea. I e-mailed the link to the other Vikings and said we'd discuss it.

Yesterday at our meeting, therefore, we discussed beginning a story with dialog in lieu of how Richard Connell with "The Most Dangerous Game" seemed to have effectively used dialog to kick-off his story. And we found some interesting stuff. It was excellent educationing.

Here's the story: http://www.classicshorts.com/stories/danger.html It's a good bit of fiction.