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| Heather Demetrios |
Sometimes it can be helpful to think about endings when you’re at the beginning of the process—not plotting the ending, but doing a bit of free, no-holds-barred thinking about your character’s emotional inner journey and where you hope she goes.
This is what you write towards, that hope you have for her in your heart. Your plot is moving toward something, a climax that, especially in YA, results in some sort of self-discovery on the protagonist’s part, a revelation about the world and their place in it.
In real life, we have no idea what comes next. Our journeys are fraught with the unexpected. But we often know where we want to go, don’t we? Thus, much of what we experience comes from what we put out into the world and the choices we make.
It’s not a surprise to see where we’ve ended up once we go back and connect the dots. It’s often inevitable. In fact, when we do this work, we see how much of a hand we have in our own fate regardless of who’s pulling the strings of our future.
So how can our protagonists experience this inevitability if we’ve imposed a plot on them with a preconceived notion about what exactly is going to happen?
The key is to have an idea about where you want that character to end up emotionally. Not, “she’s going to be the queen,” so much as, “she’s going to be in a place of power, secure and finally free of the demons of her past.” With the former, we’ve decided on a fixed ending, forcing the plot to get in line. With the latter, we’ve left room for our character to influence her own fate, for the dots to connect in such a way that the story arc parallels the emotional one.
Tolkien touches on plot in a way no one else does when he discusses the concept of “eucatastrophe.” It’s a fancy word for the feeling you get when you finish reading a novel and you think, Yes, this is the only way it could have happened.
Eucatastrophe is inevitable. It’s true and organic. It’s not about a happy ending, it’s about it being the only possible ending.
In his essay “On Fairy Stories,” Tolkien describes eucatastrophe as a “turn”: “a catch of the breath, a beat and lifting of the heart, near to (or indeed accompanied by tears)…It reflects a glory backwards.”
This glory backwards means that you should be able to go from your climax all the way to the very beginning of your story and see that the protagonist was on the path to “glory” long before she ever realized it.
Try it for yourself. Close your eyes and envision your main character. Think about the possibilities of where she might end up. What do you hope for her at novel’s end?
What would be her “glory backwards”?
Got it? Good. Now this is the place you write from. Hold that hope in your heart, just like a parent would for their child, then give your protagonist room to live her life.
Lucky you, she’s letting you come along for the ride.
Cynsational Notes
When she’s not traipsing around the world or spending time in imaginary places, Heather Demetrios lives with her husband in New York City.
Originally from Los Angeles, she now calls the East Coast home. Heather has an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts and is a recipient of the PEN New England Susan P. Bloom Discovery Award for her debut novel, Something Real (Henry Holt, 2014).
Her other novels include Exquisite Captive (Balzer + Bray, 2014), the first in the Dark Caravan Cycle fantasy series, and I’ll Meet You There
(Henry Holt, 2015). She is the founder of Live Your What, an
organization dedicated to fostering passion in people of all ages and
creating writing opportunities for underserved youth. Find her on
Twitter @HDemetrios.
Writespace Writing Center
Heather will be teaching up to six intermediate and advanced students during six sessions from March 11 to April 15 at Writespace in Houston. Note: Writers arrange their own most convenient classroom times and meetings with instructor. About the class:
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| Feb. 3, 2015 release date! |
Sometimes it feels like a story isn’t working. The
voice might feel off, or the plot seems contrived. Perhaps scenes are
reading dull or your main character feels paper-thin. You might have a
brand new idea that you can’t seem to get off the ground because every
plot point you think of feels like a cliché.
When a
book isn’t working or a new project feels stunted, we’ve often lost
sight of our work’s protagonist and secondary characters. Rather than
listening to what our characters want and need, we have imposed a
pre-conceived notion of what we think the book is supposed to be.
Regardless
of whether you tend to write from a plot or character standpoint, being
able to tune into your characters in order to find the truth of your
novel is a useful skill for any writer.
In this
six-week workshop, we’ll look at how to plot or revise your YA novel
through exercises that will help you get out of your head and into the
heart of your work. In addition to weekly writing exercises and
submissions of your work for critique, we’ll consider new ways to access
your character, such as through taking field trips with him or her, by
creating music playlists, and other unique methods. Along the way, we’ll
look at how this shift affects all elements of our work including
voice, dialogue, structure, theme and—of course—plot.
This
course is designed for intermediate to advanced writers working in any
genre within YA. If you’re looking for a challenging, dynamic workshop
that will take your writing to the next level, this workshop is for you.
Please
be prepared to spend at least three hours a week on short reading
assignments, your own writing, and online discussion. You will be asked
to turn in two 10-page submissions of your novel for critique and to
read two YA novels to enhance our discussion (if you’d like to get a
head-start, please read the novels The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater (Scholastic, 2011) and The Sky is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson (Speak, 2011).
Together,
we’ll create a supportive community through reading one another’s work,
discussing the assigned reading, and sharing insights garnered from our
exercises. Expect lively discussions and lots of fun!
Cynsational Giveaway
Enter to win a five-to-ten page critique of your English-language young adult manuscript by Heather. Eligibility: international.