Concept Sci-fi

CLUE #15:  Buried AgendA

©2008 by Chris Roerden, reprinted here by permission   

Mention the word “motive” and people think of the whydunit behind the whodunit. Yet motivation goes far beyond a villain’s reason for performing villainous acts. The good guy, especially in genre fiction, has to show just as much motivation, even if that springs from a wish for life to return to normal. But life is always eventful in fiction, and those events increase everyone’s motivation. Often missing is a clear, overt expression of what each major character wants.

“Well, whoever did this, he won’t get away with it,” Destin vowed. “I plan to look into his murder starting tomorrow. I need to clear my name. And most of all, I owe it to George.” [p.31]

     Congratulations to N. L. Williams for making sure readers know what Destin wants, and why, in A Matter of Destiny, a first novel.

     Praise to Radine Trees Nehring, too, for having Carrie tell us what she wants, and why, in A Wedding to Die For, third of five mysteries (so far):

“Henry wants to go to the court house but I never had a real wedding, and, and . . .” She heard her voice saying the words, rushing through them: “And I’d like a minister, a dress, and flowers, and a cake, and friends, and a Christmas wedding, and all of it. . . .” [p. 17]

     In a well-developed novel, as in life, every character wants something (a goal), has a reason for wanting it (a motive), and harbors some notion, realistic or not, of how to get it (a strategy). In short, everyone has an agenda.

     Compared with the life-and-death issues that drive the protagonist and antagonist in a novel of suspense, the agendas of secondary characters are of little importance. But not to them. The writer who treats characters as if they have no wants of their own robs their actions of purpose and direction.

     I’m not talking about internal goals (not yet, anyway) but about external circumstances that your characters are consciously motivated to change or set right.

     When readers are made aware of a consciously pursued agenda, we are able to root for the protagonist’s every step forward, grow anxious over each new setback, and anticipate the potential for conflict. Anticipation creates tension, builds suspense, and maintains our addiction to adrenalin, all of which keeps us turning pages.

     If you bury the agendas of your characters you weaken the potential within every role for obstructing the agenda of another character. Obstructions are good; they spread conflict and incite rebellion.

     All genre fiction is based on conflict. Without an agenda in play there is no conflict, no tension. Without conflict there is neither progress nor setback; consequently, no scene. A manuscript without a sequence of goal-obstacle-outcome scenes does not a novel make.

Explicit agendas

     You may have heard that novels of suspense should have conflict on every page. Does that mean you are expected to stage an argument, fist fight, or car chase on every page? Certainly not. Think instead of putting tension on every page. Tension comes from the anticipation of conflict.

     At the high-powered end of the conflict continuum are the high-stakes issues that pit your primary characters against each other and drive your main plot. At the low end of the conflict continuum are any issues, irritations, or doubts that worry your characters and make readers feel some degree of anxiety.

     At every point in between, tension idles, ready to accelerate and shift into high gear. The ever-present potential for conflict produces continuous anxiety and tension. For readers to feel the tension, writers need to keep readers aware of competing wants, motives, and strategies.

     Make your characters’ agendas known by what they do and say, and by what others say about them. Here’s how Lonnie Cruse achieves that in the opening scene to Murder in Metropolis, her first full-length mystery novel:

   Sheriff Joe Dalton plunked his boots on top of his desk, leaned back in the protesting chair, snapped open the newspaper, and reached for his coffee.

   Before he could down a swig, the intercom buzzed, forcing him to wade under a stack of files and push a button.

   “Yes, George?”

   “We’ve got a situation outside on Market Street, Sheriff. Guess you’ll have to handle it,” the elderly dispatcher informed him. “Morning shift hasn’t arrived yet, and the night deputies are still at that big accident scene over on Highway 145.”

   “Would the situation outside be Big Ed Simmons?”

   “Yes sir, drunk as they come and singing fair to wake the dead.”

   “Where is he? On the courthouse steps again?”

   “Nope, this time he’s on the steps at Lipinski’s Appliances. Miz Lipinski says if we don’t shut him up, she will, with that old pistol her husband kept in the store. Though what an eighty-year-old woman with crippling arthritis is doing with. . . .”

   “I’ll get right on it, George. We don’t need Mrs. Lipinski shooting up Market Street at day break.”

[pp.1-2]  

     How many individual agendas can you find in this opening scene? The sheriff’s newspaper, coffee, and boots on the desk are clues to his immediate goal, which takes precedence over the piles of files on his desk. But as soon as he learns of a “situation,” his priorities shift, and his long-range goal of serving the public good reasserts itself at the top of his to-do list.

     The agenda of the elderly dispatcher, George, is to perform his job by promptly handing off every new assignment to the work detail next in line.

     Based on what George and the sheriff say about Mrs. Lipinski, we understand her goal is to get the drunk away from her store. An old pistol affords a clear and present strategy. Her motivation? The sheriff’s action indicates we’ll learn it soon enough.

     From what is said about Big Ed Simmons, although we don’t know his motivation for doing what he does, we’re sure we’ll soon learn that, too.

     All told, Cruse’s opening scene is brimming with explicit, overt actions and implicit possibilities. The immediate agendas of four characters set us up to anticipate several collisions ahead.

What’s at stake?

     You may be thinking, “How do I maintain suspense if I let readers know what every character is thinking and planning?” The more useful answer comes from asking yourself a different question: “What part of each character’s agenda must I conceal for the time being?”

     Suspense is tension magnified. It needs the expectation of something about to happen. For readers to feel anxiety, tension, suspense, or anticipation, we need information, not its absence. If we’re unaware of the relentless descent of a razor-sharp pendulum, we have no reason to feel anxiety for the condemned man strapped directly beneath it.

     Anxiety increases in relation to our awareness of how improbable escape seems, how drawn out the approaching danger is, and how high the stakes are. Suspense comes not from ignorance but from knowledge: from the certainty that something—usually bad—is about to happen.

   To illustrate the value of letting readers in on all or part of a character’s agenda, imagine this scenario. Time and place: early one morning on a city street. Action: a young woman is searching for a place to park. We’ll call her . . . oh, I dunno . . . Ms. Parker. We watch her battered Ford Pinto starting to circle the area for the third time. Do we care? Not really. Not until the writer lets us know she will be fired if she’s late to work again.

     By learning what she has at stake, we share some of her anxiety and begin to care about her—a little.

     For us to care a little more, we have to know what losing her job means to her. So the writer revises the scene and discloses Ms. Parker’s fervent desire to remain independent of her father, who keeps badgering her to stop all this career nonsense and come home to the farm in Cornville.

     Should the writer choose to develop this scenario further, we learn Ms. Parker’s long-range goals: that the job in jeopardy is with a publishing house (no kidding!) and she’s in line for a promotion to acquisitions editor (how about that?). We discover her ambition is to nurture new writers (about time someone did), and her specialty is the erotic romance (is the sound I hear that of ears perking up?).

     Knowing what a character has at stake makes a difference, doesn’t it? Now we’re actually rooting for her to park that Pinto, pronto.

tangible and explicit

     See if your manuscript makes the goals of your characters tangible and their agendas as explicit as your plot allows. Give the reader an emotional stake in your characters’ wins and losses by revealing what penalties they face if their strategies fail. Most strategies should fail, because setbacks let you raise the stakes, escalate your characters’ desperation, and intensify their motivation to take greater risks.

     Perhaps one of Ms. Parker’s initial strategies is to set her alarm an hour earlier. Only when that fails to resolve her problem does she become ready for a bigger step, such as changing publishing houses. Or paying higher rent to live closer to work. Maybe she eventually gives up her goal and returns to the farm, where she produces corn, not porn.

     You don’t need to pursue every agenda to its completion. Minor characters seldom think beyond their immediate objectives. A brief mention of the fate of a secondary character is sufficient to put closure on that role—which you’ll end once that role serves your purpose.

     What might that purpose be? To create obstacles, of course. To complicate and frustrate the goals of the major characters. The more often you put one agenda in direct opposition to another, the higher your story’s conflict quotient. Your antagonist’s goal may be to upset the status quo. Your goal is to keep readers emotionally involved by putting tension on every page.

remember the antagonist

     For a primary character, the stakes must be considerably higher than getting fired. And in suspense fiction, losing or winning should be of life and death magnitude. That’s why most mysteries are murder mysteries. (Though contested parking spots have also led drivers to kill each other.)

     The novels I see do a fairly good job of revealing the agendas of their primary characters, though some mistakenly treat the antagonist as a minor character. The antagonist’s goals are as important as the protagonist’s—often more so, for without the strong desire that causes trouble for your hero or heroine, there is nothing to react against and become heroic about.

     How do you make the antagonist’s agenda known? Some writers reveal it in early scenes that show him justifying his behavior as he sees it. Writers who don’t reveal an antagonist’s thoughts until the climax use other means to make readers aware of his agenda early. Ever wonder why so many thrillers involve anonymous threats left on answering machines, scrawled in blood at a crime scene, or delivered with flowers?

     As for the protagonist’s agenda, if she is a professional crime-fighter her motivation is understood as part of her job description. Even so...

RAISE THE STAKES

     Keep raising the stakes to increase your protagonist’s motivation—no matter what your genre. How? Add more personal ingredients. Keep her off balance. Create complications that make her struggle with her emotions. Force her to make decisions that risk compromising her values. Have her wrestle with her inner impulses while also dealing with external challenges.

   If your protagonist is an ordinary Jo, not a crime-solving pro, her motivation must be extra convincing. You might strengthen her values by giving her, for instance, a firm commitment to justice or world peace—except that such ideals are too broad and generalized to produce victory by the penultimate chapter.

    A winnable goal is one that’s specific and measurable—say, finding the ski-masked sniper who shot Aunt Amelia as she led Sunday’s demonstration for world peace in front of the war memorial. Endow your character with certain traits: a streak of stubbornness here, an independent lifestyle there, here a quirk, there a quirk.

     Personality traits are preconditions for your protagonist to take ever-increasing risks, but traits alone won’t convince an editor that a character who is not a cop would choose to pursue a murderer.

     How do you create that kind of motivation? By raising the stakes. It’s an element missing from a number of first-time submissions. Check to see where and how your manuscript:

• emphasizes l’ingrédient personel: the conviction that your protagonist, or someone she cares about, will be grievously harmed if someone or something isn’t stopped before a certain time;
• establishes her initial reluctance to get involved;
• shows her exhausting all logical alternatives, such as trying but failing to convince others to take her suspicions seriously;
• creates new actions that keep ratcheting up her desperation.

     Wasn’t it the need for this degree of compelling motivation that put so many personal friends and family members of TV’s Jessica Fletcher in mortal danger once a week?

[This chapter contains 5 additional pages.]

FIND & FIX CLUE #15: BURIED AGENDA

• Maximize your story’s potential for tension by placing characters with opposing agendas in encounters with each other.
• Verify that for each scene, readers have been made aware of the goal of at least one character as early as possible, through action, dialogue, or a little narrative.
• Review each scene to see if it presents an obstacle to thwart the main character’s goal.
• Identify where and how you keep raising the stakes and increasing your characters’ desperation to justify their taking greater risks.
• Revise each script as if you were playing the role of each character, in turn, and want what each wants and for the same reason.
• Confirm that your story creates anticipation and tension on every page.
• See what internal conflicts your protagonist has that force difficult choices, and whether he or she grows as a result.
   

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