{"id":1235,"date":"2025-09-11T11:59:51","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T17:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rolledscroll.com\/news\/?p=1235"},"modified":"2025-09-11T11:59:51","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T17:59:51","slug":"novel-development-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rolledscroll.com\/news\/archives\/1235","title":{"rendered":"NOVEL DEVELOPMENT 2"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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ARTICLE FIRST APPEARED IN JUNE 2025 FELLOWSCRIPT, ICWF PROFESSIONAL BLOG<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Character, Plot, or Message-Based Novels<\/strong>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(A discussion of my own approach to developing character goals, part 2)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Short Story Character Goals<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I take a big-picture, plotter approach to developing the goals of characters within novels.<\/em> But for shorter fiction, my character goal formation is more relaxed and possibly more creative. I keep in mind my basic novel order of author goal<\/em> (message) first, followed by a character\u2019s macro-goal<\/em> governing the story arc that I punctuate with micro-goals<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time, rather than plotting each scene ahead of time, I sketch out my main story message, then occupy the page with people developed along the way. Shorts don\u2019t need as much attention to keeping track of actions, more focused because of the brevity of this \u201cslice-of-life\u201d style. Thus, I give my short story characters only one main macro-goal, based upon my authorial goal of message, and then as many micro-goals as needed, according to length and number of scenes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blurbs Keep Me Focused<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What helps me keep to the basic direction and character goals of my short story is to write out a very condensed blurb<\/em> that often ends up introducing the story once published. I follow the format of online movie descriptions. For example, here\u2019s the blurb for the film Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A widowed housecleaner in 1950s London feels invisible until a Dior gown sparks her imagination and sends her on a life-changing journey.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reading the blurb, one suspects the grieving traveller\u2014feeling insignificant and needing her soul awakened\u2014is looking for joy, her apparent goal. The blurb of another recent movie\u2014the theologically and politically charged flick Conclave<\/em>\u2014indicates main plot, conflict, and, again, implicit goals:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Cardinal Lawrence is tasked with leading one of the world’s most secretive and ancient events, selecting a new Pope, he finds himself at the center of a conspiracy that could shake the very foundation of The Church.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The wording of this brief come-on hints about the Cardinal\u2019s goals: to take responsibility, to break through secrets from the past, to battle a world-shaking conspiracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writing a blurb before starting to draft my short story often helps guide me to clarity of character goals. Following are several of my blurbs appearing in my 2024 collection of stories and novellas.<\/em> In parentheses I\u2019ve included the theme for each\u2014that is, the authorial goal driving the message\u2014with sub-points giving examples of character macro- and micro-goals:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

  • \u201cThe Curious Tourist\u201d<\/strong> (His Word, a never-changing standard, is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.): Terra C\u00e9l\u00e8ste, visiting mystical Montpellier in the South of France on a subconscious quest for more than store-bought souvenirs, bunks in the attic of wise and aged mapmaker Great-Uncle Elroy, who warns her against straying from the safe and true path.<\/em><\/strong>
    • Terra C\u00e9l\u00e8ste\u2019s desire to tour the \u201creal\u201d Montpellier (macro) leads her to the door of an antique shop specializing in the occult (micro), from which she bolts (micro) as she rejects evil (macro).<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
      • \u201cWet\u201d<\/strong> (Trinity is God as one in essence and three in persons.): Drowning in trauma and pursued by pain-soaked memories, Beth has bolted from the west-coast island home of her childhood for the drought-ridden Canadian prairies, returning home now to face her sorrows, responsibilities, and long-lost joys.<\/em>
        • Beth\u2019s immersion into a farmhand identity (macro) has her building a barbwire fence (micro), exposing her to a prairie storm (micro) that makes her face her identity (macro).<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
          • \u201cClanging Symbols\u201d <\/strong>(Symbolism without substance leads nowhere.):Doran, an American tutor in 1970s\u2019 Japan, disenchanted with love and the Christian<\/em> faith he once embraced, plunges into Kyoto\u2019s pantheistic culture.<\/em>
            • Doran, rejecting the cross of Christ in favour of Eastern thought (macro), finds himself praying at a Shinto shrine (micro), exposing him to a false \u201cdeity\u201d (micro) that eventually proves to be empty (macro).<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
              • \u201cReconstituted\u201d<\/strong> (Resurrection is the ultimate answer for our resistance to getting old.): Aging ex-pat Dolores tours a Mexican mummy museum to face the fear that<\/em> drove her from family and the grace that calls her back.<\/em>
                • Dolores, hating her wrinkles (macro), compares her aging to corpses (micro) and to the dewy youth of her granddaughter (micro), who also exudes a spiritual life (macro).<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n

                  A Few General Tips<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

                  • Do<\/em><\/strong> brainstorm imaginative character goals (possibly using the 101 fun ideas from last article). You might employ the \u201cSMART\u201d framework popularized by the business-management community to ensure your character goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, <\/em>and time bound.<\/em><\/li>
                  • Don\u2019t<\/em><\/strong> get too many story goals going at once. Even longer pieces and novels must be boiled down to the minimum in your mind so that your direction is clear.<\/li>
                  • Do <\/em><\/strong>allow character goals to formulate the plot, conflict, climax, and resolution.<\/li>
                  • Don\u2019t <\/em><\/strong>force your characters to do or be what doesn\u2019t suit the story\u2014even if you\u2019ve set up goals for them. Allow yourself to rewrite goals as your story unfolds, but do this within reason, as changing too much in the midst of the tale can leave you (as it has me) rewriting large chunks of earlier story segments.<\/li>
                  • Do <\/em><\/strong>resist the impulse to clump all resolutions at the end of the story. Instead, with the macro-goal unfulfilled but ever in mind, allow the character’s micro-goal actions during the course of each scene to produce a change in the next scene\u2019s micro-goal. Nurture the most conflict-producing problems and character goals scene by scene to heighten tension until the story climaxes, and only then resolve the macro-goal.<\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

                    Character, Plot, or Message-Based Novels? (A discussion of my own approach to developing character goals, part 2) Short Story Character Goals I take a big-picture, plotter approach to developing the goals of characters within novels. But for shorter fiction, my character goal formation is more relaxed and possibly more creative. I keep in mind my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rolledscroll.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rolledscroll.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rolledscroll.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rolledscroll.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rolledscroll.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1235"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rolledscroll.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1237,"href":"https:\/\/www.rolledscroll.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235\/revisions\/1237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rolledscroll.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rolledscroll.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rolledscroll.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}