This is a fantastic point! I had been stuck in a lot of loops because I was trying not to have too small of an external plot or too big but those feelings I was expressing from a lot of huge change in my life in 3 years (breaking from abusive family, worldview, religion etc) felt enormous and its been difficult to find the write genre conventions to convey it.
I wonder, too, if we need distance from those powerful internal struggles, time to sort through and assess them, before we can write about them, or write them into our stories with a level of organization (for lack of a better word) that our readers can relate to. In working on an emotionally difficult section of my second novel, about a young teenage boy's struggle with the accidental death of his father, I needed to find someone with an experience that resembled it to some degree. I finally consulted with one of my nephews, who had gone through something like this - his mother died of cancer when he was nine. It wasn't exact, but repeated reading of his words (20 years later) on his remembered thoughts and feelings, their essence sank into my heart, and I was able to write that character's thoughts and feelings and actions with authenticity.
It seems as if this goes to the heart of the basic tenets of story elements as espoused by Shawn Coyne and Story Grid. 'Something external' happening implies an inciting incident. Characters act only when something happens external to them. A scene or a story written to show a change in a character's worldview or their behavior makes no sense at all if there is not an inciting incident to drive it-something external that causes that internal change or is a catalyst for change. That's the tipping of the first domino. What follows, progressive complications (sometimes), a turning point, and a crisis question, leads to a decision (typically off screen) which leads to a climax, which is essentially on-screen action taken by the character to respond to what has happened. A character's actions, or how they change, only make sense if something external lights that flame. The inciting incident and any progressive complications are typically external events which work together with the turning point and crisis question, which are typically events internal to the character. So yes. Attempting to write a story, or even just a scene, without incorporating the necessary elements of story, just won't work. When I read Shawn's book, and he enumerated the different categories of external and internal genres, my initial reaction was that I assumed that a story focusing on nothing more than an internal journey sounded to me like it would be ineffective. And by itself, I think it would. But as he said, that as an element of a broader story that has an external plot, does make a lot of sense. Some measure of both is always needed. A story that is nothing but plot can never work, just like a story that is nothing but character (or nothing but an internal journey of a character) can never work. That seems to be the crux of Tim's terrific advice here. 'Focusing on the external story' implies having all of the elements of story and using them properly. That's paramount. 'Knowing what character arc you want your character to go through' implies knowing your character intimately. Inhabiting them, becoming them, walking in their shoes-the more you can do that, the better Tim's advice to concentrate on the external and let the internal elements automatically happen, will work. What's also cool is that if you get to know your characters really intimately well, they will tell you where the plot will go. They will show you what they will say next in dialogue. They'll do all that heavy lifting for you. Power steering all the way.
I was thinking about stories that are entirely internal, and I realized they do work, but the internal stuff needs to become external. For example, if you take like a psychological thriller, and everything is inside the person's head and they are seeing things that are not there or what not. Technically everything is just inside the main character's head, but those elements become 'external'. The imaginary person they are talking to, is effectively an external element trying to bring about change, even though behind the scenes it is just in the person's head. Also, even in those situations there is often trauma or something that originally caused the issue(even if it happened in the past prior to the story).
I'm having a hard time conceptualizing a story with either internal or external plot missing. If you want to focus heavy on one of them and minimize the other, I can see that, but completely missing one of them, I don't think that works too well. Both are so important, and they become way more than the sum of their parts.
Anecdotally, when I was in my undergrad (English), the "interiority of a character" was a preoccupation of my peers and professors. Lotta folks who wanted the equivalent of their internal monologue to be the same as a story.
There aren't as many books without an external plot (they tend to be really literary/boring) but there are quite a lot of books with virtually no internal plot--usually action/thrillers written for that segment of the male audience who do not want to see an alpha male protagonist experience weak things like feelings or internal conflict.
@@aaronhunyady I agree that there are going to be many such stories that are light on internal plot, but I don't think you will find any that have no internal plot. And I'd even go a step further, the ones that are really good, that are still talked about today, those will have a lot of internal plot as well as a lot of external plot. And I think the audience for "alpha male with no weakness" is going to be surprisingly small. People want to see a hero struggle and change, and that can happen even if they are a tough dude. Look at John McLain from Die Hard, for example. Lot's of external plot happening, dude is tough as nails, but he's also changing in the process. Maybe not much, but enough to count for an internal plot being very present.
I have the opposite problem. My writing is more action driven than thought driven. Editors insist I re-write to insert how I personally feel about things happening in my story. I'm guessing a key to losing the tendency toward a personal world view writing style might be to write about something that is more important than your world view or you .Write as if you are the only person on the planet capable of saving what you write about from annihilation. If that's impossible for you, perhaps fiction is your calling. Also, and no offense here but I don't expect any of you to give a shit about my world view and certainly don't give a shit about yours.
This entire series has been very enlightening. I’ve learned so much. Tim is a great teacher.
This is a fantastic point! I had been stuck in a lot of loops because I was trying not to have too small of an external plot or too big but those feelings I was expressing from a lot of huge change in my life in 3 years (breaking from abusive family, worldview, religion etc) felt enormous and its been difficult to find the write genre conventions to convey it.
I wonder, too, if we need distance from those powerful internal struggles, time to sort through and assess them, before we can write about them, or write them into our stories with a level of organization (for lack of a better word) that our readers can relate to.
In working on an emotionally difficult section of my second novel, about a young teenage boy's struggle with the accidental death of his father, I needed to find someone with an experience that resembled it to some degree. I finally consulted with one of my nephews, who had gone through something like this - his mother died of cancer when he was nine. It wasn't exact, but repeated reading of his words (20 years later) on his remembered thoughts and feelings, their essence sank into my heart, and I was able to write that character's thoughts and feelings and actions with authenticity.
"If you're going to share widely, make sure you’re sharing from your scars, not your open wounds" - Glennon Doyle Melton quoting Nadia Bolz-Weber
@@StoryGrid Yes, scars represent emotional distance.
@@StoryGrid Great advice, thank you 😊
It seems as if this goes to the heart of the basic tenets of story elements as espoused by Shawn Coyne and Story Grid. 'Something external' happening implies an inciting incident. Characters act only when something happens external to them. A scene or a story written to show a change in a character's worldview or their behavior makes no sense at all if there is not an inciting incident to drive it-something external that causes that internal change or is a catalyst for change.
That's the tipping of the first domino. What follows, progressive complications (sometimes), a turning point, and a crisis question, leads to a decision (typically off screen) which leads to a climax, which is essentially on-screen action taken by the character to respond to what has happened. A character's actions, or how they change, only make sense if something external lights that flame.
The inciting incident and any progressive complications are typically external events which work together with the turning point and crisis question, which are typically events internal to the character.
So yes. Attempting to write a story, or even just a scene, without incorporating the necessary elements of story, just won't work.
When I read Shawn's book, and he enumerated the different categories of external and internal genres, my initial reaction was that I assumed that a story focusing on nothing more than an internal journey sounded to me like it would be ineffective. And by itself, I think it would. But as he said, that as an element of a broader story that has an external plot, does make a lot of sense.
Some measure of both is always needed. A story that is nothing but plot can never work, just like a story that is nothing but character (or nothing but an internal journey of a character) can never work.
That seems to be the crux of Tim's terrific advice here. 'Focusing on the external story' implies having all of the elements of story and using them properly. That's paramount. 'Knowing what character arc you want your character to go through' implies knowing your character intimately. Inhabiting them, becoming them, walking in their shoes-the more you can do that, the better Tim's advice to concentrate on the external and let the internal elements automatically happen, will work.
What's also cool is that if you get to know your characters really intimately well, they will tell you where the plot will go. They will show you what they will say next in dialogue. They'll do all that heavy lifting for you. Power steering all the way.
I was thinking about stories that are entirely internal, and I realized they do work, but the internal stuff needs to become external. For example, if you take like a psychological thriller, and everything is inside the person's head and they are seeing things that are not there or what not. Technically everything is just inside the main character's head, but those elements become 'external'. The imaginary person they are talking to, is effectively an external element trying to bring about change, even though behind the scenes it is just in the person's head. Also, even in those situations there is often trauma or something that originally caused the issue(even if it happened in the past prior to the story).
I'm having a hard time conceptualizing a story with either internal or external plot missing. If you want to focus heavy on one of them and minimize the other, I can see that, but completely missing one of them, I don't think that works too well. Both are so important, and they become way more than the sum of their parts.
Anecdotally, when I was in my undergrad (English), the "interiority of a character" was a preoccupation of my peers and professors.
Lotta folks who wanted the equivalent of their internal monologue to be the same as a story.
There aren't as many books without an external plot (they tend to be really literary/boring) but there are quite a lot of books with virtually no internal plot--usually action/thrillers written for that segment of the male audience who do not want to see an alpha male protagonist experience weak things like feelings or internal conflict.
@@aaronhunyady A book without an external plot would be the equivalent of an essay, I guess.
@@aaronhunyady I agree that there are going to be many such stories that are light on internal plot, but I don't think you will find any that have no internal plot.
And I'd even go a step further, the ones that are really good, that are still talked about today, those will have a lot of internal plot as well as a lot of external plot.
And I think the audience for "alpha male with no weakness" is going to be surprisingly small. People want to see a hero struggle and change, and that can happen even if they are a tough dude. Look at John McLain from Die Hard, for example. Lot's of external plot happening, dude is tough as nails, but he's also changing in the process. Maybe not much, but enough to count for an internal plot being very present.
External conflict is what feeds the internal. Not really sure why anyone would want to write a story that has one but not the other. Ya need both.
Internal growth comes at the point of external resistence.
I have the opposite problem. My writing is more action driven than thought driven. Editors insist I re-write to insert how I personally feel about things happening in my story. I'm guessing a key to losing the tendency toward a personal world view writing style might be to write about something that is more important than your world view or you .Write as if you are the only person on the planet capable of saving what you write about from annihilation. If that's impossible for you, perhaps fiction is your calling. Also, and no offense here but I don't expect any of you to give a shit about my world view and certainly don't give a shit about yours.
You would like what I write then. It's all about inner turmoil.