Category Archives: Benjamin Percy

Percy’s Six Elements of Story: Delay Gratification and Withhold Information

10 Wednesday Feb 2021

Posted by in Benjamin Percy, Creative Process/Craft, Qualities of Good Fiction, Technicalities

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[This is the sixth and final part in a series of posts started on December 2, 2020. We’re exploring Benjamin Percy’s foundational elements of story as found in the opening of his book Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction.]

Delay Gratification and Withhold Information

You’re several drafts in and your story is starting to pop. You’ve established the narrative goal. Your protagonist is acting with unwavering urgency, meeting obstacles that are building her resolve, while also creating tension for your reader. You’ve got most of the lower-order goals in each scene working and a ticking clock has been put in place.

So why hold back? Why not give your reader everything at once?

In the opening pages of Burden of Proof by DiAnn Mills, a female FBI agent stands in line at a store when a woman, also in line, her tells the agent she can’t care for her baby anymore and thrusts the child into her arms before walking out. A beat later a man approaches the agent and tells the agent that he’s the father. The child responds to her father’s voice. The father proceeds to ask the agent why she kidnapped his daughter.

There is a lot of information withheld from us as we read that scene. But this doesn’t stall the momentum. Instead it draws us in. Makes us turn the page.

Such withholding of information and delaying the gratification of a reveal can be done on a grand scale, such as when the solve comes at the end of a 300-page gauntlet, or on a scene-by-scene level as details are held back to drive up the reader’s wonder.

Your reader, whether they realize it or not, doesn’t really want to know what happens next––yet. This is the joy of story, the desire to discover. Discovering what’s next isn’t the joy; the joy is the desire to discover what’s next.

Percy’s Six Elements of Story: Ticking Clock

27 Wednesday Jan 2021

Posted by in Benjamin Percy, Contract with the Reader, Qualities of Good Fiction, Role of the Writer, Technicalities

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[This is the fifth in a series of six posts started on December 2, 2020. We’re exploring Benjamin Percy’s foundational elements of story as found in the opening of his book Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction.]

Ticking Clock

Your story is really starting to come together. You’ve established the narrative goal. Your protagonist is acting with unwavering urgency, meeting obstacles that are building her resolve, and creating tension for your reader. You’ve also got most of the lower-order goals in each scene working as well.

Your main character is already fully motivated. What will adding a ticking clock do for your story?

It will bring to the forefront that reality with which we all live––there is only so much time. The narrative goal, if not accomplished in time, will result in even greater angst for your protagonist. Perhaps this ticking clock is driven by some aspect of place or setting, perhaps it’s driven by an ever-closer approaching antagonist, or even by some simmering character trait of the protagonist himself.  

A ticking clock will get your reader’s heart racing, it’ll pull your reader down into the story like little else can. Time is an element you must manage in your story, regardless. Why not manage it in a way that will cause your reader to––quick––hurry––turn the page?!

Percy’s Six Elements of Story: Create Lower-Order Goals

13 Wednesday Jan 2021

Posted by in Benjamin Percy, Contract with the Reader, Creative Process/Craft, Qualities of Good Fiction

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[This is the fourth in a series of six posts started on December 2, 2020. We’re exploring Benjamin Percy’s foundational elements of story as found in the opening of his book Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction.]

Create Lower-Order Goals

So, you have the narrative goal and a protagonist with the unwavering urgency to pursue that over-arching goal. You have laid out the obstacles that will hinder this character all along the way and create tension. The next concern is building the scenes that will form the overall story. 

Scenes can be thought of as mini-stories. Each scene moves the protagonist along in their quest. The best scenes have a goal, what Percy calls a lower-order goal, that propels that particular scene forward under the overall arc of the story. Just as the human urgency speaks to the DNA of the protagonist, these lower-order goals should as well. These goals should not only provide momentum but also develop the character, be integrated with what they say and do, and deepen the setting as well. Of course, the primary concern in this is your reader. Bring your reader along with pace and tone that creates the certainty––the certainty they will turn the page.

Percy’s Six Elements of Story: Create Obstacles that Ramp Up Tension

30 Wednesday Dec 2020

Posted by in Benjamin Percy, Contract with the Reader, Creative Process/Craft, Technicalities

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[This is the third in a series of six posts started on December 2, 2020. We’re exploring Benjamin Percy’s foundational elements of story as found in the opening of his book Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction.]

Create Obstacles that Ramp Up Tension

So, you have the narrative goal and a character with the unwavering urgency to pursue that goal. If the character pursues and achieves their goal unhindered, there is no story. There is no action. There is no change in the character and there’s nothing to draw a reader in. 

Instead, what must happen as the character unwaveringly pursues his/her goal? Bad things. And a lot of them. The more bad things and the worse they are, the better. We don’t want to simply pile on tragedy. This will create pity. Instead, with each obstacle, the character is shocked, processes, and regroups—renewing their resolve in the pursuit of the narrative goal.

This is why novels are set in wars—All the Light We Cannot See—or amidst deep societal and familial ideals and decorum—Blessings—or on the edge of apocalyptic events—Station Eleven. In these scenarios there are plenty of narrative goals, human urgency, and assured obstacles which create conflict and result in tension. Story will occur. The reader will be thrilled.

Percy’s Six Elements of Story: Human Urgency

16 Wednesday Dec 2020

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[This is the second in a series of six posts that started on December 2, 2020. We’re exploring Benjamin Percy’s foundational elements of story as found in the opening of his book Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction.]

Human Urgency

Motivation that demands prompt action. This must be coupled with the narrative goal. Neither can stand alone. There must be a character who wants to achieve the goal and there must be some urgent reason for doing so. This reason is at the character’s core, it’s intertwined with who they are.

Ideally there are layers of urgency, multiple internal and external reasons why the character must accomplish the goal. These are called stakes. The stakes may be outcomes that are material as well as metaphysical—relationship, money, recognition, revenge, desire. The urgency is tied to who the character is, their needs, and he or she is willing to sacrifice to achieve these stakes—to sacrifice comfort, possessions, the stability of home.

Human urgency is the force that propels action.

Percy’s Six Elements of Story: Establish A Clear Narrative Goal

02 Wednesday Dec 2020

Posted by in Benjamin Percy, Creative Process/Craft, Starting a Novel, Technicalities

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I am reading Benjamin Percy’s Thrill Me: Essays on Fiction. In the second chapter, Percy lays out his list of the foundational elements of story. Revisiting a list like this now and again is important. It keeps writers grounded in our craft, it keeps us from getting carried away on the crests of the sentences and missing the rising tide of the story.

Over the next six posts, we’ll ruminate on each of them. 

Establish a Clear Narrative Goal

In Moby Dick it’s “kill the whale.” In Frankenstein it’s “define the true monster.” In Mrs. Bridge it’s “find purpose and meaning in the mundane.”

The narrative goal is why the story exists. It’s why there is ink on pulp. This is the story’s purpose for being and the one element that, once revealed, will call the narrative to an end. 

The narrative goal is why the story exists. It's why there is ink on pulp. This is the story's purpose for being and the one element that, once revealed, will call the narrative to an end. Click To Tweet

From a writer’s perspective this is the foundation, the starting point. Until it is known, work cannot begin. This is the story’s destination. Like a road trip, we know where we’re going, even as how we’ll get there and what we’ll encounter along the way remain mysteries. The narrative goal is first in Percy’s list, and for good reason. Without it we don’t have a story.