SEAN DOOLITTLE

Road Trip

SEAN DOOLITTLE is the author of crime and suspense novels. Dirt was named one of the 100 Best Books of 2001 by Amazon.com; Burn won ForeWord magazine’s Mystery Gold Medal; and The Cleanup received the Barry Award, an Anthony Award nomination, CrimeSpree magazine’s Readers’ Choice Award, a Spinetingler Award, and a Nebraska Book Award. His most recent book, Safer, received glowing reviews in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and People magazine. Doolittle’s books have been licensed for translation into several languages.

 

 

Book critics sometimes make a distinction between plot-driven stories and character-driven stories. As readers, we basically understand what these terms are supposed to mean (plot = action, character = emotion). As writers of mysteries and thrillers, we understand the crucial importance of compelling plots.

But even in a good, twisty, hard-charging mystery or thriller, the best plots—the best stories—don’t unfold at the expense of character. They grow from the characters. And if you are truly engaged with the story you’re telling, the reverse can be true as well.

The playwright John Guare (Six Degrees of Separation) said, “I loved Feydeau’s one rule of playwriting: Character A: My life is perfect as long as I don’t see Character B. Knock Knock. Enter Character B.”

I love the way this rule distills the plot and character relationship. If Character B never comes knocking, we have no plot. But why does the arrival of Character B put a kink in the life of Character A? Who are these people?

If you’re writing a family drama, maybe Character B shows up with some emotional luggage in tow. If you’re writing a mystery, maybe Character B walks in with a gun. If you’re writing a thriller, maybe Character B walks in with a machine gun.

But any story line is strongest when the character threads and the plot threads are organically entwined. Try this exercise to flex some of the muscles that will help you achieve that union.

EXERCISE

PART ONE

Three characters are traveling somewhere in a car together:

 

MANDY (THE DRIVER): Mandy has a Ph.D. in art history but works in a corporate human resources department. She has tattoos but hides them under her clothes. She was married once but is single now. She has no children, though she believes she would like to be a mother one day.

 

RENÉE (PASSENGER SEAT): Renée is a waitress. She has tattoos and doesn’t hide them. She thinks sometimes about going back to school but suspects in her heart that it’s not going to happen. She recently quit smoking.

 

JUSTIN (HAS THE BACKSEAT ALL TO HIMSELF): He’s younger than Mandy and Renée but not by much. He graduated high school but dropped out of college. He inherited a large sum of money when his parents were killed in a car accident, but so far he hasn’t spent a dime of it.

 

Your task is to take this cast and no more than an hour of your life to develop a rough plot for a mystery or thriller story. Questions to get you started:

1. Where are they going?

2. How did these three characters wind up in this car together?

3. What do the characters want/expect out of this trip? Does what one character wants conflict with what the other character(s) want?

4. Do any of the characters know anything about the trip (or about each other) that the other characters don’t know?

5. What are the obstacles between these three characters and their destination?

6. Are they going to get where they are going on time? Or at all?

These questions are only meant to get you thinking and plotting. It’s not strictly mandatory to ask or answer all or any of them (though you’ll no doubt answer some of them automatically). Just remember : If this car gets from Point A to Point B without incident, we have no plot.

As for what kind of plot you should create, keep the rules loose, but try always to answer the questions in ways that deepen your mystery (consider questions 1 through 3) or ramp up your thrills (consider question 5).

Tip 1: When considering question 5, think of obstacles both outside the car (flat tire, moose in the road, bad weather, military air strikes) and inside the car (see question 3).

Tip 2: If you get stuck, return to question 5.

PART TWO

In completing Part One, you’ve grown a plot out of characters. Now, take the plot you cultivated and return to the car. Change where everybody in the car is sitting. Most important: Put a different character in the driver’s seat.

Without changing your plot—and without significantly altering the broad descriptions of our cast members supplied in Part One—take no more than another hour and see if you can make Mandy, Renée, and Justin fit into their new spots in ways that make sense.

Tip 3: To accomplish this, you’ll probably need to know more about these characters than you know right now.

 

When you’re finished, take a look at what you’ve done. Are the two versions of this story you’ve brainstormed plot-driven or character-driven ? With luck, this will be a harder question to answer than any of the questions you’ve answered so far....