Still unsure of the exact form this would take, I began to develop the characters. I kept it quite abstract by simply thinking of aspects that characters have such as jobs, looks, interests, back story, etc.
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These features helped me to develop actual characters that had a believable depth to them. After I had designed the characters and their relationships, I could then formulate stories involving them.
To help me with this, I used several sources. I remembered the structure of stories that Maggie Morgan had told us during our content development stage in 3rd year. She said there are four main parts to a story:
1. Status Quo – everything is fine, it is as it has been.
2. Change – something happens to disrupt the usual flow of things.
3. Conflict – this disruption leads to some sort of struggle.
4. Resolution – the struggle is settled and the situation returns to normal or a new status quo.
This structure is similar to Freytag’s Triangle developed by Gustav Freytag in his book Technique of the Drama (1863).
There is a Beginning, Middle and End structure. The rising action, or desis, can be clearly seen from the Beginning to the Middle where it hits a climax, or the peripeteia. From there, the action begins to fall by the denouement until the End where the plot is resolved.
These points detail the structure of the story but what about the content? Mark Stephen Meadows’ book Pause and Effect (2002) helped me develop more engaging stories. In it, he describes that themes such “…fear, struggle, love, desire and society are issues that are both universal and personal”. I take this to mean that everyone will know about topics such as these but will also relate to them on a personal level.
There must also be a perspective of someone to convey the story and carry it forward giving meaning to the actions and events.
With this knowledge in mind, I began drawing diagrams of plots with characters I had developed using the method described above. I found this to be a very useful way of presenting stories and created a couple ways of doing it. The first was very diagramatic which helped me develop relationships between the characters. Click on the images to see them bigger.
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I also tried doing them as a timeline, although this wasn't very productive. It was quite restrictrive.
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