c. 1998 by Alicia Rasley
What's the dark moment, and what do I do with it?
Terri
Answer:
Terri,
The dark moment works in books where the protagonist has to overcome some internal conflict in order to resolve the external conflict. Let me give you an example:
I'm going to use PG Wodehouse's Bertie and Jeeves stories to show that the dark moment can happen even in the lightest of books.
In these delightful books, Bertie usually has a goal that involves helping one of his friends. Bertie loves his friends, and will do anything to help them... anything but ask the advice of his valet Jeeves, that brilliant but overbearing expert on most everything.
See, Bertie prizes friendship. But he also values his independence. This is a conflict in values that causes him all sorts of trouble, because, though neither will admit it, Jeeves is probably the best friend Bertie has. (A peculiarly tyrannical friend, of course.)
The conflict between these two values can only be resolved if Bertie is forced to resolve them-- thus the external plot which puts them into opposition.
So here's the sequence of events:
1. Bertie formulates the goal of helping his friend Gussie or Bingo or Catsmeat capture his heart's desire-- a lady, of course. External conflict emerges-- friend's campaign to win lady.
2. Though he considers asking Jeeves for help, or the friend urges him to do so, Bertie asserts his independence and declares that he can do this himself. Internal conflict emerges-- need for independence.
3. Bertie evaluates personalities, concocts schemes, sets up romantic interludes, has some successes and some failures. With each failure, he considers but discards the idea of asking Jeeves for help. Rising conflict.
4. Something goes wrong. The worst happens. Bertie somehow finds himself engaged to the Heart's Desire! And she's emphatically not his heart's desire. His friend is furious and declares eternal enmity. Sometimes Bertie even ends up on the run from the law or a psychiatrist who wants to dissect his obviously abnormal brain. Crisis! (That's actually the technical term for the "bottom of the book", when all appears to be lost.)
5. Bertie despairs. He imagines a future with the simpering Heart's Desire and shudders. He contemplates the alternatives of life imprisonment or the dissection table. He can't decide among them. The future is beyond bleak. The Dark Moment.
6. There's only one thing to do. And it's the one thing he hasn't let himself do: Give up his cherished independence and ask Jeeves for help. He doesn't actually think Jeeves can fix this mess. He doesn't even know if Jeeves will try, seeing as how Bertie has probably alienated him by rejecting his offers of assistance. But Bertie knows he has to do it. He gathers his courage (yes, it takes great courage to ask for help) and asks. The Decision... and the Action. The internal conflict is resolved.
7. Jeeves proves that friendship is stronger than independence by graciously getting down off his high horse and helping Bertie. With a flurry of advice and action, he guides Bertie through the thicket of dangers, and Bertie emerges, unscathed, unengaged, unenemied, and undissected. The Climax. The external conflict is resolved.
8. With a mix of humor and humility, Bertie makes a symbolic gesture (say, giving up the purple spats that so offended the conservative Jeeves in Chapter 1) that reaffirms their connection. The Resolution.
The dark moment, then, is that moment of despair, brought on by the events that led to the crisis, which forces the protagonist to overcome some internal issue in order to have the ammunition, skills, allies, to resolve the external conflict. The decision he makes in the dark moment, and the action he takes because of that, leads to the climax.
How can you do this in your book? Well, I'd suggest you consider what internal issue your protagonist is avoiding and how that hampers his ability to deal with the external conflict. (In a romance, it might also hamper his ability to give and accept love freely.)
Now what action can show the resolution of this issue? What can he decide to do that will simultaneously overcome this issue and lead to the climactic resolving of the external conflict?
Ask for help? Stand up for himself and demand respect? Choose justice over loyalty? Choose love over truth? Reach out to an estranged parent? Apologize? Swallow his pride? Accept that he's a member of a team and not just a loner? Confront what he's always feared most? What can he do that he's always avoided doing?
Let your character's internal issue bring him to the dark moment, and force him out of it.
Good luck!
Alicia
_____________________________________
Question:
I've got a character and a plot, and external conflict. But I know the hero needs internal conflict too. How can I invent one for him? Veronica
Answer:
Here's what I like to do. This is cleverly Aristotelian, dealing as it does with the tragic/heroic flaw, and really adds to the coherence of your story and your character.
Identify your hero's major strength.
That is, the strength that is most important in this story, and/or most important to him.
For example, let's say your hero is an intensely loyal guy. He always stands by his friends. He's always willing to help them out, and he always thinks the best of them.
Loyalty is his great strength.
So the plot should make use of this virtue of loyalty. The hero should be put in the position that requires him to be loyal to a friend.
However, if all you do is let him demonstrate his loyalty, his standup-guyness, you don't have a character journey. He's going to be the same in the end as he is in the beginning.
That's why you need internal conflict-- to give room for growth.
Okay, here's the trick. What are the problems and issues that come along with this great strength?
Loyalty = blindness. He's just not clearsighted where his friends are concerned. That's fine if all his friends are worthy of his trust. But what if one isn't?
So your job is to come up with a plot whereby he learns through painful experience that obverse side of loyalty. His character journey is towards discernment, towards learning to reserve loyalty until he is certain the friend is worthy of it. He must also re-order his value system. Loyalty is a great virtue, but it really shouldn't be at the top of his list, above such things as truth and justice.
Face him with some dilemma of loyalty. He learns his friend is selling state secrets to another country. His loyalty to his friend is put into conflict with his loyalty to his country.
There's the conflict. What makes him great also causes him major trouble.
Now because loyalty really is a virtue, and it's so integral to who he is, he's never going to abandon it entirely. But through his struggle to do what's right, he'll have to find a way to retain loyalty as a value while also modifying its negative effects.
Of course, this is only going to work if this great strength is more than just window-dressing. It's got to play an important role in the plot. You can't identify the great strength as "unvarnished honesty" and then never confront the character with the necessity of lying, or who he is-- that unvarnishedly honest fellow-- is not going to connect with the plot.
I must say, I like this formulation better than choosing a "flaw" that has nothing to do with the strength. The problem with that is, it's much easier to overcome a flaw if it isn't intrinsic to your sense of yourself. It's easy to think, "You mean I really don't look good with a bouffant hairdo? Okay, I'll wash the mousse out of my hair." It's not so easy to confront the necessity of giving up your devotion to your family, if on the top of your list of "who I am" is "devoted to family".
So try that out-- identify the strength, then look at the obverse side of that strength. There's always an obverse. There's no such thing as a harmless strength. Strength always comes with its destructive baggage.
Keep writing!
Alicia
Or email me at rasley@juno.com.