An important part of The Marshall Plan® novel writing system is building into your story at least three “surprises.” A surprise is an especially dramatic event that occurs in the “failure” phase of sections in these three places in your story:
- at the end of the Beginning (or one-quarter of the way through your story)
- in the middle of the Middle (or halfway through your story)
- at the end of the Middle (or three-quarters of the way through your story)
What is a surprise? It can be:
- a horrible or shocking discovery your lead makes;
- revelation of new information that is dire news for your lead in terms of her achieving her story goal;
- an action taken by the opposition (the villain or antagonist of your story) that negatively affects your lead;
- or information that means your lead’s efforts and beliefs about how to best achieve his story goal have been all wrong.
Here are a couple of examples.
Example #1:
Your lead, a young woman named Ann, has just received word that a great-aunt has left her a rambling old Victorian house on the coast of Maine. Ann has recently ended a long relationship and sees this news as a chance at a fresh start, so she packs everything up and moves to the house she’s inherited but never seen. But things don’t seem quite right there; she picks up clues that her mother once lived in this house and that something terrible may have happened here. Then comes Surprise #1: While going through some boxes in the attic, Ann finds an old newspaper clipping, a story about a child who died in this house under mysterious circumstances . . . a little boy. An uncle Ann never knew she had . . . who appears to have been murdered . . . and her mother was somehow involved. The impact of this surprise is that it now seems extremely doubtful that Ann will find her peaceful new life here, at least not until she solves the murder of this little boy so many years ago.
Example #2:
Your lead, a young man named Daniel, is deeply in love with a young woman named Rachel, a fellow student at the college they both attend. Daniel goes to great lengths to get Rachel to go out on a date with him, and the evening goes wonderfully well . . . until he begins to kiss her good night at her door but suddenly, instead of wanting to kiss her, he wants to sink his teeth into the tender flesh of her neck. He’s horrified, scared, and gets away as quickly as possible. Soon, after interrogating his parents, he learns that he’s a vampire, and that his vampirish tendencies have emerged because for the first time in his life he’s in love. The impact of this surprise is that Daniel cannot be with the woman he loves.
Your three surprises should increase in intensity if possible, but the important thing is simply to have them. They will keep your story from dragging and give your readers the element of surprise they enjoy in the novels they read.
