Spoiler: show
. It illustrated how the various parts of the story interacted, how frequent those parts were to the story, in who’s perspective the parts are found, how much of that perspective is dedicated to that part, and how much screen time each character got. But it was incomplete (not to mention a bit sloppy on the angle, but whatev.) What it lacks is reflecting how large of an impact or role a character has on the story. Itachi, for instance, has the smallest slice of the pie, but has one of the largest impacts on the story.Now, for those of you who want to, you can create the graph above for your story. But for those who want something a little simpler, the graph to follow is it. Thank goodness. This graph, simple though it may be, helped me root out some serious problems.
The graph shows how powerful a character’s actions on the story are. This doesn not graph potential, for instance, Sarutobi could make decisions that outweigh everyone elses. These just graph the decisions he does make, and how much they affect the story for the characters we care about. Basically, the size of his role.
So I knew I need to make two graphs, because Hinata’s storyline happens in parallel with Naruto’s, but they don’t actually interract much. She’s got her own problems to overcome, so she’s almost in her own issolated environment. The few times her and Naruto do interact have a huge impact, but the influences in Naruto’s sphere don’t really effect her that much, and vice versa.
So here’s her graph.
(Yes, those are pretty much the colors I associate with each character. A look inside my brain. Don't stare, it's rude.)
I was like
. Immediately when making it I knew something was wrong. Look at Naruto’s graph again, for comparison. His decisions, his actions play the biggest roles in his story. Yes, other people play a role, but he’s a very active character. And active characters are interesting. Ever find you’re more interested in the villain of the series than the protagonist? Protagonist busy whining about his fate and practicing his swordsmanship while the villain is off doing cool things? That’s because, in large part, the villain is active, and the protagonist is passive. In many stories that can work, because the protagonist becomes active later on and we get our fist-pumping moments. But if I can make an active character, instead of a victim, why not?On top of that, people want to have power in their lives (readers). Having a protagonist who makes the most powerful decisions to affect their life offers a wonderful escapism, especially if the author doesn’t sell the delivery short (in other words, it’s not a simple matter for the protagonist to have power over his life, but must try very hard, like the reader themselves might need to do to change bad situations in their life). It can become an inspiration to make the reader more active in their life, less a victim of things that come their way, along with providing that escapism and fantasy. And the best of these will even help equip the reader with some of the methods to break their own victimization.
A powerful option is also a subversion, where the protagonist fights and fights for change, but in the end can’t do it himself
. But this is different than what I was doing. This is an active character failing, not a passive or victim character.So most of the important decisions made in Hinata’s storyline were made by other people. It was a powerful storyline, especially the payoff at the end. But people have to get to the end, first. This was not the story I wanted to write. Parts of it were, but this element was not. So, for me and my story, I knew something had to change.
More than that, I’ve heard it said that you need to have your characters influencing each other, or else you might as well be writing separate books. The people explaining this to me went on to explain how the separation sabotages your readership, and what opportunities you miss when having such a separation. Well, Naruto really influenced Hinata, right? But the truth was, their interactions were so limited. In a story of this nature (aka not a ten+ novel fantasy epic of some sort) I shouldn’t need two graphs like I did.
So, in the end, what I learned was A) Hinata needed to become more active and B) her and Naruto needed to interact a LOT MORE.
I couldn’t see the forest for the trees, but with this graph I did. Simple colored spheres representing character’s influence on a story. For those of you who are mid-story, whether facing problems or not, I challenge you to make this simple graph.
Now, with the problem identified, I find myself more eager to write the whole story
. Kind of like when you find and kill that spider that’s been crawling around in your bed. More ready to sleep now? Yes, I thought so.Oh, and here's the download for the free art program I used: InkScape
or something
