1. Introducción
7.7 Localizar dispositivos e implicaciones de instalación
Waters Dark and Deep
For Waters Dark and Deep, the genre tentpole moments for Brie van Rossum are:
Part 1: The protagonist discovers her powers and is introduced to the world.
Part 2: She learns the truth about her mother's death/murder and also discovers who her enemy is. During this time, she is also training and using her powers to some success and some failure.
Part 3: She goes after the enemy in full force, using her powers with more success, though she's still not a pro.
Part 4: She beats the enemy—often not through sheer force, but through some other quality. In Harry Potter, it was love. In The Hunger Games, it was Katniss's
mercy.
And here is her character arc:
Character: Brie van Rossum
Fatal Flaw: She doesn't want to accept her place in the war that is coming, because she doesn't believe in herself. She lacks confidence, and she's not brave, and she's not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to win. She's a reluctant hero.
Motivation: Brie's main motivation is to survive and win the war for the Hallows. She doesn't start out this way, though. At first she simply hopes to avoid the war. But as she breaks through that, she gets closer to her
transformation.
Goals:
⁃ She longs to believe that her mother's death was an accident rather than a murder. This is the equivalent of burying her head in the sand, ignoring potential enemies that she might have inherited from her mother. She searches for evidence of how her mother died but ignores anything that points to enemies. She wants to feel safe. She only reluctantly accepts that her mother has enemies and they are coming after her when they are literally on her doorstep. The information is
irrefutable. But up until this point, she can live in a dreamworld.
⁃ She refuses to search for the stones, which she learns her mother was searching for before she died. She essentially refuses to take up her mother's cause, even though it's her destiny. She does eventually come around, but it takes a catastrophic event to spur her into action. Her brother Pilot's life is put at risk if she doesn't find the stones. She is going to lose him. While she couldn't find the stones to save herself (she didn't think she was worthy) she now must find them to save him.
⁃ She denies herself many relationships and tons of support that could help her move faster. She believes she's not worthy of them. This is lack of confidence in general. She pushes people who love her away at first.
She feels like she's damaged goods. Eventually, she realizes that even if her life/future is doomed, she should still accept the love of
others in the present. She also must stop believing that she is a bad person.
⁃ She runs and hides instead of facing her enemies. She eventually must face her enemies when they reach her doorstep (Part 2 of the 4-Part Structure). In Part 3, she needs to actively identify and go after her enemies.
⁃ She hates being a "chosen one" of sorts. She resents the power that others give her because she hasn't earned it. However, this ends up with her wasting that power… because she could have been wielding it for good this whole time, whether it was earned or not. Eventually, she has to accept that although she didn't ask for this power/influence, she has it and continues to wield it. If she doesn't use it, her people, the Hallows, will wither in the face of threats. She has to accept her destiny. When she realizes this, she eagerly runs toward her destiny, finding a sense of purpose in her life.
I'm now going to pull the character arc and I've uncovered through the genre tentpole moments to further flesh out the 4-part structure and
tentpole moments.
Now, keep in mind that for Waters Dark and Deep I've only provided a broad character arc for the protagonist, Brie van Rossum. Since there are several others (about 10) who will have their own stories throughout the series, this isn't going to be a traditional mapping—just the broad strokes of how the book will form.
Part 1: Brie van Rossum discovers her powers and is introduced to the world.
She believes that her mother is dead and is grieving her. Several Hallows that she meets tell her that her mother had enemies, but she ignores them. She searches for evidence of how her mother died but ignores anything that points to
enemies. She wants to feel safe. She learns about the stones her mother was searching for but does not want to go after them, because her mother died for them and she is not a revolutionist. The inciting incident (there are several) is that she meets one of her mother's enemies. The Decision is that she goes on the run, and into hiding.
Part 2: She learns the truth about her mother's death/murder and also discovers who her enemies are. She only reluctantly accepts that her mother has enemies and they are coming after her when they are literally on her doorstep. The information is irrefutable. During this time, she is also training and using her powers to some success and some failure facing those enemies. However, she is still waiting for them to come to her and primarily in defense mode.
In terms of her relationships, she pushes people who love her away at first. She feels like she's damaged goods.
At the Reversal moment, she learns that her brother Pilot will succumb to the dark side if she does not find the stones. She is going to lose him. While she couldn't find the stones to save herself (she didn't think she was worthy) she now must find them to save him.
Part 3: Brie goes after the enemy in full force, using her powers with more success, though she's still not a pro. She easily finds the first stone (she knew where it was all along) and starts going on perilous missions to recover the other six. Along the way, she meets and makes more enemies, all escalating in power and ability.
She also starts asking for help and stops pushing people away. She realizes that even if her life/future is doomed, she should still accept the love of others in the present. She also must stop believing that she is a bad person.
Eventually, she has to accept that although she didn't ask for this power/
influence, she has it and continues to wield it. If she doesn't use it, her people, the Hallows, will wither in the face of threats. She has to accept her destiny.
When she realizes this, she accepts her destiny (does not eagerly run toward it).
She just wants to get it over with. Since she knows what's coming, she's able to say her goodbyes and make her arrangements for when she's gone.
The "Cards on the Table" moment is when she determines her main enemy and finds the seventh stone. Now she knows who she's after and she has the weapon to use against him.
Part 4: Brie beats her main enemy and wins the war for the Hallows. She tricks her enemy into stepping under the stones (vague, but stick with me). This kills him and the war is won. Similar to the Lord of the Rings, though, this journey destroys her emotionally. She is the hero, but it has come at a huge personal
sacrifice. Her transformation is making the personal sacrifice for the greater good.
At this point, and because this is an outline for the full series, not just a specific book in the series, I would go through each part and flesh out the specifics even more. For Part 2, for example, I would decide which 3
enemies Brie encountered and in which order. I would then line them up in my outline (perhaps one per book if it's a longer series) and come up with the specifics of how she met or came across them, and so on.
This is what I would call nested plotting. Start with the large, the series arc, and work your way down into the cracks and crevices of the details. If you know specific scenes you plan to write, you should be able to at least identify where in your story they belong (which part out of the four). You should be able to start putting those scenes in a sequence and putting other markers around it.
I'm not going to flesh out the other two projects in full detail, because I think this is probably enough to make my point. If you have any questions, we can always work on it together—see my Frequently Asked Questions section for more information.
Working in Reverse
If you already have your outline or your draft and are trying to figure out a character's motivation, just look at the tentpole moments. Tentpole
moments are almost always breaking through a big goal or a false belief, or both. If you've been mapping out your story intuitively up until this point, you've probably inserted the goals/false beliefs into your story in this way—
you just haven't had a name for them until now.
Once you identify a few goals/false beliefs pairings, you can look at the similarities or overarching theme of them and roll it up into a motivation/
fatal flaw pairing.
If you are feeling like you still have a murky middle of your book after going through relationships #1-7, Super Structure by James Scott Bell is a fantastic resource. He provides lots of scenes that belong in the middle of your book, that can spur ideas for your own story.
Layer 4 - The Representations
In the Representations layer, we'll look at everything we've already
discovered about your story and tease out the many ways to better express it. We'll discuss symbols, metaphors, motifs, and more.
So many authors stop at the first three layers. But by putting all of these thematic elements in place, you'll easily connect the first layer through fifth layer of your story all the way through, like pulling threads through 5 sections of material to weave a quilt.
If there is one takeaway you'll get from this book, it's that theme is the connective thread that makes your story magical. You'll see in dozens of examples across several genres throughout this book how this works.