Not So Fast! Your Main Character Resists the Call to Action (And Things Get Juicy)
I Have an Idea for a Novel. Now What???
In last week’s post, we began our discussion of Act 1 of the 5-Act structure. We looked at the hook and inciting incident.
Buuuuut…
Look, nobody just willingly goes on a life-altering journey. Most of the time, even if there are unhappinesses in life, we’re more willing to commit to the known situation than risk what we think is working in pursuit of something more. (I mean, what if it all goes wrong???)
Your character is going to do the same. They’re going to reject the inciting event.
Last week, we imagined a main character, Sarah, a real go-it-aloner who believes you should never trust anyone. Turns out, she’s inherited her grandmother’s bakery…that is, if she’ll come to her grandmother’s hometown and run it herself and find 20 regular customers willing to sign an affidavit that she is herself continuing the business in her grandmother’s legacy, with the same connection and care.
What does Sarah do? In a word, she flinches. Like all main characters do after the inciting event.
What does Sarah’s flinch look like? She might try ignoring the lawyer. Or hiring her own lawyer to find some loophole. Maybe searching for a manager to run the business on her behalf.
In response? Your main character will be met with:
Escalating Pressure
In Sarah’s case, we can imagine maybe a new time pressure. Suppose the Historical Society is chomping at the bit to get their hands on this building. Maybe they’re giving her another 48 hours to get her hiney to her grandmother’s hometown and get the ball rolling…or forfeit the deal.
Maybe, at the same time, her old life is beginning to crumble around her…or, at the very least, crack a little. Maybe her boss is putting her on some sort of performance review. Maybe her apartment building is being restructured, jeopardizing her incognito routine.
And maybe new complications arise around the bakery. Maybe Sarah’s lawyer discovers a ton of debts. Or maybe a real estate developer actually wants to tear it down.
It’s getting harder and harder now for Sarah to keep saying no.
Along the way, she’s also going to meet:
The Threshold Guardian
This person or force will basically say, “Oh, you really think that you can do this and hold tight to your lie? Prove it.”
In Sarah’s case, even though she’s gotten off her rear and actually gone to her grandmother’s hometown, she still isn’t giving it what her grandmother wanted her to. She’s going through the motions. So this threshold guardian might be a customer who sees through her fake friendliness. Or a key employee who quits in protest because Sarah is turning it all into a cold business like every other business. Maybe a supplier says he will no longer fill orders because she presents him with a standard contract…and he and her grandmother had a handshake agreement that in exchange for fresh bread the supplier could take to a local food pantry, she was getting flour at cost.
Sarah’s old ways aren’t working. Cracks form one after another.
The key to this is scenic writing.
Do not—I repeat, do not—accomplish all this by summarizing. Write all this—Sarah getting word of her inheritance, her attempts to find a loophole, her initial interactions in her grandmother’s hometown—in individual scenes. Your reader wants to watch this play out in real time.
(Need some additional help writing scenes? Check out my FEELS Method for Writing Strong Scenes.)
Most writing guides (guides that divide books into fewer acts for plotting) will indicate Act 1 ends with your main character finally responding to the call for action, deciding the only way out of this mess is through. But because we’re working with a 5-act structure, that will come in Act 2.
Next week? We’ll do a bit of a review of Act 1, so I can fully explain how it’s a pantsing / plotting hybrid.