Connecting Arcs in a book?

[Luxuria]

So, I know I have written here asking about how to write a middle of a book. However, I think another issue that I have is connecting story arcs. I have several acts, and plots that DO connect, but I don't know how to connect them. Because it really feels like I can't seem to string them together in a natural way. This happens in every story I have written, and I don't know why. I have the plots and characters and world. But I don't know how to piece them together. I would like some advice.

Thank you!

Luxuria

 

[Banespawn]

You can connect arcs by having them either help or hinder each other at different points in the story. Progress in one arc might help progress another arc, or instead it might present an obstacle.

Look at Star Wars. There are 3 arcs:

1) Find the death star plans > get them to the rebels > destroy the death star
2) Han is a jerk and only cares about money > Han starts to care about Luke and Leia > Han comes back in the nick of time to save Luke
3) Luke wants to be a Jedi like his father > Obi-wan teaches him stuff about the force > After being saved by Han, Luke uses the force to destroy the death star

In parts of the movie, the arcs work against each other. Han leaving after getting his reward is a setback for the "destroy the death star" arc. When they are on the death star and Luke wants to save Leia, Han's arc makes him refuse, but then Luke uses that against him. He promises that Han will get a big reward, thus aligning the two goals.

Both Han changing (the payoff of his arc) and Luke learning to trust the force (the payoff of Luke's arc) happen right before Luke destroys the death star (the payoff of the story arc).

Here are a couple videos which may help to better visualize it:

 

[Luxuria]

You can connect arcs by having them either help or hinder each other at different points in the story. Progress in one arc might help progress another arc, or instead it might present an obstacle.

I understand this. But for me, it's not so much of a Death Star Plans and mixing in Han's character arc. It's that I get stuck connecting Death Star Plans plot to getting them to the rebels. It's the progression IN a single plot arc. Like, connecting Jabba's palace to Dagobah > Endor > Throne Room Battle. I get stuck at Endor, because I am always like, "the empire wouldn't be that stupid." I get stuck on the HOW. How do the rebels get past the empire's blockade and how do they meet the Ewoks? And then, how does Luke end up on the Death Star II?

I am grateful for the advice and the videos, though. I am just trying to explain what my current problem is.

 

[Stuart Dren]

Plotting is an underrated skill. Probably because so many people claim all plots are the same thing.

The leaping off point tends to be from a point of failure in order to keep things interesting. Stories, especially adventure stories, are usually a step-stone path of failing forward. There's a tollkeeper of sorts with this, too. The heavier the tone and more dangerous the circumstance, the higher the toll asked. Remember the cost of escaping the Death Star with a princess in A New Hope?

On the practical side, I think it's a case of needing more elements. How is a resource problem. Add plausible resources. Place them far back enough or with sufficient foreshadowing and give them little or big costs such that it's not a plot of convenience.

 

[Lillacmess]

You can connect arcs by having them either help or hinder each other at different points in the story. Progress in one arc might help progress another arc, or instead it might present an obstacle.

Look at Star Wars. There are 3 arcs:

1) Find the death star plans > get them to the rebels > destroy the death star
2) Han is a jerk and only cares about money > Han starts to care about Luke and Leia > Han comes back in the nick of time to save Luke
3) Luke wants to be a Jedi like his father > Obi-wan teaches him stuff about the force > After being saved by Han, Luke uses the force to destroy the death star

In parts of the movie, the arcs work against each other. Han leaving after getting his reward is a setback for the "destroy the death star" arc. When they are on the death star and Luke wants to save Leia, Han's arc makes him refuse, but then Luke uses that against him. He promises that Han will get a big reward, thus aligning the two goals.

Both Han changing (the payoff of his arc) and Luke learning to trust the force (the payoff of Luke's arc) happen right before Luke destroys the death star (the payoff of the story arc).

Here are a couple videos which may help to better visualize it:

thank you for these videos they have been great!

 

[Homer Potvin]

Like, connecting Jabba's palace to Dagobah > Endor > Throne Room Battle. I get stuck at Endor,

Not sure what you're asking, and not to oversimplify, but Luke follows a literal to-do list:

1. Rescue Han
2. Check in with Yoda
3. Help the rebels defeat the Empire
4. Sort out Darth Vader

The character does the things to accomplish his goals. And as far as fiction goes, this particular corner of the Star Wars franchise is one of the least contrived. Which part of that series events feel unrealistic?

"the empire wouldn't be that stupid."

Why not? You study history; it's replete with military errors of indescribable stupidity. The Galactic Empire has nothing on Nazi Germany in the strategic stupidity department. People are not logical. They are animals cursed with egotistic impulse. Sprinkle some of that shit into the sauce, and they're liable to do anything.

I would like some advice.

Similar to some of your other questions, I think you're overthinking and creating unnecessary problems for yourself. I think you have a mental wall between realism and fiction that you haven't broken through yet. Stories require a certain element of disbelief to execute, which the reader is more than happy to suspend by virtue of reading the story in the first place. If they weren't willing to do that, they would not be reading fiction. One of the most basic elements of storytelling is the contrivance of certain events when it is convenient to the narrative:

how do they meet the Ewoks?

This is a great example. Leah crashes her speeder and literally winds up at the feet of one of them. Then the rest are literally ensnared by a bait trap. Neither of those require much suspension of disbelief either. You have to get the characters into a room together as quickly as possible. Readers largely don't care about character motivation unless you force them to by overloading the wordcount with things that don't move the story along. Almost all plot holes are of the author's creation by unnecessarily drawing attention to them with superfluous decoration, like over-emphasizing characterization or motivation. Or realism.

Not sure if any of that helps, but I think all of your questions point back to fiction vs reality box that paralyzes your ability to plot. You writing is very good, but from what I've seen here, I can tell you avoid plot and action whenever possible. I realize it's a small sample size of short pieces, but I can see your plot-aversion on even the paragraph level. Which is fine, but you would need to tailor your style to more of literary-prose narrative where you can get away with nothing happening.

I don't mean to criticize, but you keep asking rephrasing the same problem through different questions to the point where I think the solution is obvious: practice plotting.

 

[Luxuria]

Not sure if any of that helps, but I think all of your questions point back to fiction vs reality box that paralyzes your ability to plot. You writing is very good, but from what I've seen here, I can tell you avoid plot and action whenever possible. I realize it's a small sample size of short pieces, but I can see your plot-aversion on even the paragraph level. Which is fine, but you would need to tailor your style to more of literary-prose narrative where you can get away with nothing happening.

I don't mean to criticize, but you keep asking rephrasing the same problem through different questions to the point where I think the solution is obvious: practice plotting.

Hello Homer,
I appreciate the breakdown of where I am struggling. Because it will help me fix my problems. Also, sorry for asking the same question so many times. I am curious though, what you mean by 'plot-aversion?' and any advice on how to fix that? I am glad to know plotting is where I need to work. I think getting used to outlining will help. And no, I am not offended and I appreciate your honestly.

 

[Luxuria]

Plotting is an underrated skill. Probably because so many people claim all plots are the same thing.

Yeah, I completely agree with this. I think I am going to improve the plots by writing outlines.

The leaping off point tends to be from a point of failure in order to keep things interesting. Stories, especially adventure stories, are usually a step-stone path of failing forward. There's a tollkeeper of sorts with this, too. The heavier the tone and more dangerous the circumstance, the higher the toll asked. Remember the cost of escaping the Death Star with a princess in A New Hope?

Ah, that makes sense and yes, I am aware of toll-keepers. Sometimes, the toll is very high in my stories.

On the practical side, I think it's a case of needing more elements. How is a resource problem. Add plausible resources. Place them far back enough or with sufficient foreshadowing and give them little or big costs such that it's not a plot of convenience.

Ah, okay. So, in this case, adding more will help. I will try that in the outline and see where it takes us.

 

[Homer Potvin]

Hello Homer,
I appreciate the breakdown of where I am struggling. Because it will help me fix my problems. Also, sorry for asking the same question so many times. I am curious though, what you mean by 'plot-aversion?' and any advice on how to fix that? I am glad to know plotting is where I need to work. I think getting used to outlining will help. And no, I am not offended and I appreciate your honestly.

Aversion might not be the right thing to call it, but I've noticed that the majority of your questions are related to plot-mechanics and the few writing samples of your I've read don't really have plots. It's more of a contemplative approach to plot-type events that have already happened. Not quite navel gazing, but close. But like I said, that might not be representative at all.

I can't offer much advice beyond experimenting with more plot-oriented wordcounts. Outlining will help guide you there.

 

[Luxuria]

Aversion might not be the right thing to call it, but I've noticed that the majority of your questions are related to plot-mechanics and the few writing samples of your I've read don't really have plots. It's more of a contemplative approach to plot-type events that have already happened. Not quite navel gazing, but close. But like I said, that might not be representative at all.

Honestly, yeah. I struggle in the plot arena the most in my stories. Because I know where I want it to go, but can't get it to work out sometimes. There are other issues, too. I guess you're right. The stuff I have shared on here hasn't had much in the way of a plot. It might be how I write? But also, I realize I tend to write novels, so plot move slower than a short story? Contemplative approach seems about right-- what I have posted so far seems to be more introspective and looking back on an event/plot.

I can't offer much advice beyond experimenting with more plot-oriented wordcounts. Outlining will help guide you there.

Thank you for the suggestions. I think outlining is what I need to work on.

 

[Louanne Learning]

You’re writing historical fiction, and that could be research-heavy. I can imagine all the interesting things you are finding out about as you flesh out your knowledge about the period which you are writing about. Something for every character! And sometimes that leads to the research driving the story, rather than the other way around. If you first begin with an idea about what you want to happen, with an idea about what you want to say, and then let that inform what you need to know, the plot drives the research instead of the other way around.

 

[Luxuria]

You’re writing historical fiction, and that could be research-heavy. I can imagine all the interesting things you are finding out about as you flesh out your knowledge about the period which you are writing about. Something for every character! And sometimes that leads to the research driving the story, rather than the other way around. If you first begin with an idea about what you want to happen, with an idea about what you want to say, and then let that inform what you need to know, the plot drives the research instead of the other way around.

Yeah, it sometimes is research heavy. But also, some of my work is pure fantasy, too. And yeah, what you're saying makes sense. So, write, then research to fill in the plot and setting. I like this. It also helps me figure out a school project I am supposed to be working on.

 

[X Equestris]

The leaping off point tends to be from a point of failure in order to keep things interesting.

On this note, try-fail cycles are a helpful way to break down or construct plots.

Your lead tries to achieve their main goal and fails. They lick their wounds and regroup only to fail once more. Then they make one last effort and succeed. In a novel with conventional three-act structure, the try-fails would tend to fall the midpoint and third crisis point while the try-succeed comes in at the climax and resolution, but you can also use try-fail cycles to drive the motions in-between. You just need smaller peaks and valleys.

Similarly, I remember Deborah Chester talking about how failure and partial success can be used to enhance plotting. If the essence of a given plot point can be summed up as “Can X do Y?”, with X being your character and Y being whatever they want in this moment, a flat “Yes” or “No” doesn’t make for a very interesting story. Better to answer with:

• “Yes, but…” where the character gets what they’re after but they sacrifice something along the way, what they wanted turns out not to be as desirable as they thought, achieving their goal causes new problems, etc.
• “No, but…” where the character fails to get what they’re after but they might be able to if they did XYZ
• “No, and furthermore…” where the character not only doesn’t get what they’re after but now they’re in even more trouble.
• “Yes, and…” where the character gets what they want and more. I feel like this answer is best reserved for early on (getting the ball rolling with a Call to Adventure”) or as a conclusion.

If we continue the Star Wars references, you can see a “No, and furthermore…” in response to “Can our heroes deliver the plans to Alderaan?” when they arrive to find the planet destroyed and get caught in a tractor beam, and it’s not long before there’s a “Yes, but…” for “Can they rescue Leia?” when Obi-Wan is forced to sacrifice himself to enable their escape and it turns out there’s a tracker aboard the Millennium Falcon that enable the Death Star to follow them to Yavin.

 

[Banespawn]

Honestly, yeah. I struggle in the plot arena the most in my stories.

This might sound like a weird suggestion but try writing a murder mystery.

I get the sense that you might be focusing too much on the internal conflicts of the characters and not enough on the external problems that they face. With a murder mystery, the external parts are built into the genre. Someone is killed, someone investigates the murder and finds clues, and at the end, they unmask the killer.

It doesn't even have to be a full novel. It could be a short story. But getting the structure in place, getting to the end and seeing how it all works together might help you when structuring other stories.

You can also take time looking at your favorite movies and books and seeing how they are structured. Structurally, Shrek and Despicable Me are the same movie. Both are relationship stories where the protagonist abandons their original goal in the end in favor of found family. Both have very obvious points along the way where we see the protagonist changing bit by bit. Both protagonists retreat back to their comfort zones right before the climax, then realize what they really want and go after it.

Understanding how other stories are structured will help you to better structure your own.