PLOT # 13
MATURATION
Flight (J. Steinbeck)
Nick Adams’ Stories (E. Hemingway)
Huckleberry Finn
Hansel and Gretel
What does it take to write a page-turning maturation fiction plot? Whether for adults or children, there are certain steps to take. Let’s see:
- Create a protagonist who is on the cusp of adulthood, whose goals are either confused or not yet clarified.
- Make sure the audience understands who the character is and how she feels and thinks that begins the process of change.
- Contrast the protagonist’s naive childhood against the reality of an unprotected life (adulthood).
- Focus your story on your protagonist’s moral and psychological growth.
- Once you’ve established your protagonist as he/she was before the change, create an incident that challenges her beliefs and her understanding of how the world works.
- Does your character reject or accept change? Perhaps both? Does he/she resist the lesson? How does he/she act?
- Show your protagonist undergoing the process of gradual change.
- Make sure your young protagonist is convincing; don’t give him/her adult values and perceptions until he/she is ready to portray them.
- Don’t have that protagonist accomplish adulthood all at once. Small lessons often represent major upheavals in the process of growing up.
- Decide at what psychological price this lesson comes, and establish how your protagonist copes with it.
ALL INFORMATION COMPLIMENTS OF
Tobias, Ronald B. 20 Master Plots: And How to Build Them (Kindle Locations 1185-1207). F+W Media, Inc. Kindle Edition.
I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in writing fiction of any kind.
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