D is for Discovery of Destiny

What do you even say when you discover your destiny? For many characters no thank you and your crazy you've got the wrong person are common knee jerk reactions. It's my goal as the writer to help  my hero at least understand their destiny even if they choose to ignore or walk away. Of course if they walked away from the destiny I've hoisted on them permanently it would never turn out to be a great story.

At least I wouldn't want to read a story where a mad woman was attacking and winning because no one was able to stand up to her and no matter how bad it gets no one ever does. This little story needs your hero. What do you do to convince him to don the power bequeathed to him at birth?

Larry Brooks says that you have to give them the chance to be human before they can ever become the hero you see in them. What does that entail? There are 3 phases. I am actually talking about 3 of his 4 story boxes he discusses in his 10-part tutorial on the fundamentals of story structure.

In the first phase your hero is anything but a hero. Everything he does is in response mode. He's scared and unsure of what to do. I mean who wouldn't be a little freaked out to discover the fate of the world resides on their shoulders. He is a wanderer and is doing any number of things to try and solve his new and unexpected problem. From Storyfix2.0:

The hero is running, analyzing, observing, recalculating, planning, recruiting or anything else required before she or he can move forward.

Alright now that he's finally done stumbling about and looking for answers. He has a plan and has entered the attack phase. Our hero takes his plan and his allies and off they go to kick some ass!  But what else has been going on while our hero was hard at work? Storyfix knows:

Meanwhile, the plot thickens – the antagonistic force is moving forward, too –  and what the hero thought would work isn’t quite enough.  They need more.  More courage.  More creativity.  A better plan. 

What the hell does our hero do now? The attacker must up his game and become the warrior. Just before you move along to the next phase something, known as the second plot point, will happen to rock your hero's  world all over again. Entering the last phase Storyfix says:

Part 4 shows how the hero summons the courage and growth to come forward with a solution to the problem, to reach the goal, to save the day or even the world, to attain the fame and riches associated with victory, and to generally beat down and conquer the story’s antagonistic force.

One very important thing to remember about the last phase is that no new information can enter the story. Our hero must draw on and use things and people that are already in play to solve the problem. Also, while he may need help the ultimate success should rely on what our hero has learned.

Update on me: I had more tests, yes it was shocking. Then I took a pretty bad fall and am now a fall risk. I also landed in a cardiac unit with Atrial Fibrilation. So it would seem that I am falling apart.

Good luck to those taking on the April challenges. Please leave me a note and say hello I will try to follow you back to see what you're up to.

Photos by Pixabay