Plot Propulsion: Creating a Snap

There are three primary forces that propel the reader through a story.  The first and least reliable is the readers only persistence in completing a story they begin.  For a while, some readers will turn pages merely out of habit.  These habits die quickly and unless there is more to drive the reader onward, fatigue and ennui will turn off even the most robotic of page turners.

The second source of drive comes from the major plot elements.  Interest in what will befall a character and intrigue about the outcome will entrain a few other readers.  This propulsion is relevant and contributes to the readers overall satisfaction with the story at any given moment.  For most readers, however, this stimulation is only occasionally palpable.

The most important source of drive is the momentary interest that the reader experiences based upon the situations the characters are in.  This does not need to relate directly to the plot-- and thank goodness it doesn't.  You can insert humor, sarcasm, anger, titillation, etc. and keep the audience at the edge of their seat.  These little tensions and excitements serve as distraction and legerdemain for the authors implant of necessary plot contrivances.  Good authors populate their plot with the tools the heroine is likely to use to solve the great problems of the story.   Rather than be obvious about these latent "easter eggs", they may be laid discretely while the audience is caught up in the gay distractions of the characters situational jostling.

Great power can be released into your story when the two planes of intrigue intersect.  When the minor, momentary crisis touches the chronic and major crisis of the story,  you can achieve a sudden snap.  The reader is jolted ahead and deeper into the crisis because they feel it more intensely.  The best illustration of this occurs through the use of what I will call "Preverberation".  Preverb is a kind of foreshadowing that sets up an experiential analog of the feeling the audience will feel later.  Watching a child lose a pet, becomes a minor emotional copy of the major dread the audience is asked to feel later when the child's life is at risk.  We have coaxed the audience to feel loss, and subsequently they are snapped into the plot down the road by their fear of feeling that loss when multiplied into the drama a major life loss.  In essence, preverb is a dim reflection of the major emotion stimulated by your plot drama.  Because it precedes the major crisis, it can't be called a reverberation.

The act of writing is always an act of magic.  Like the magician we put in hours and hours of thought and work to create a few seconds worth of excitement.  Also, like a magician, we frequently work backward from our endpoints and ensconce our special effects in pockets only we know about.  Using preverb as a psychological precursor is just such a set up.

When bombast and pyrotechnics seem to overstate or disrespect our story's great message,  the use of preverb can snap the reader into deeper contact with our point, and propel the story with a renewed vigor. 
 

Robert Cureton, Ph.D.
San Diego, CA