Your protagonist’s plans are useful, especially when they don’t pan out

When I’m editing novels, one of my most common margin notes–particularly at the start of scenes–is “What’s the plan here?”

Providing the reader with insight into a character’s plans is an incredibly powerful storytelling technique. Plans build anticipation and suspense. They give the reader a sense of what’s at stake if the character succeeds or fails. And if the plan comes off–or, even better, if it goes spectacularly awry–you don’t have to tell the reader things went well or badly. The reader already knows what good looks like.

Too many writers withhold plans, either because they are insufficiently crafting a character’s interiority, or they’re trying too hard to be mysterious and are withholding too much from the reader.

Sharpen those plans and make them vivid! Here are some ways they’re useful.

A character’s hopes and dreams connect us to the overarching quest

Near the outset of a novel, establishing a character’s overarching dreams are a terrific way of helping the reader understand what makes them tick.

This goes for everything from Disney animation musicals, where princesses and lion kings-to-be sing about what they want in their future, to more literary novels like Invisible Man, where a mission statement is established from the outset about what the protagonist is seeking:

It goes a long way back, some twenty years. All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: That I am nobody but myself. But first I had to discover that I am an invisible man!

When we understand the character’s broader hopes and dreams, it tells us a lot about their values and desires and makes them seem more vivid. A character who wants to scare everyone with his mighty roar is different from a character who wants to go dancing on those what do you call them feet. The reader understands the differences intuitively and the specificity around their dreams helps us conjure them more vividly.

For the novel as a whole, if your protagonist had a magic wand, what would they do with it? What would their life look like? Help the reader understand that broader north star and show the protagonist always going after it.

Plans orient the reader and build anticipation

But plans don’t just apply to overarching quests. On a scene-by-scene level, it’s useful to keep re-orienting the reader around what the protagonist is trying to do and why it matters to them, particularly at the outset of scenes.

Plans build anticipation. When readers know what the protagonist wants, why it matters to them, and how they plan to get it, we immediately start wondering if it’s going to work or not. As the character then goes after that thing they want and experiences obstacles, it builds suspense and uncertainty. The more the protagonist tries, and the more we see them invest, the more invested we become on their behalf.

In order to start the timer on the suspense clock, it’s so important to first prime the reader. What’s the plan? What is the very specific reward if it works? What’s the very specific consequence if it fails? Anticipation and suspense needs room to build.

Establish plans, then send the character in motion. When everything happens swimmingly, we’ll feel a sense of excitement. If someone finds themselves dangling over a lava pit, we’ll know precisely what hangs in the balance.

Instead, too often writers keep readers in the dark. They show a bunch of activity and action, hoping the reader will find mystery in what’s happening. And then, when the climactic moment happens in the scene, they end up needing to dribble out an explanation for its significance after the fact.

Anything can be made to work, but withholding a protagonist’s plans is typically not as effective as simply priming the reader around what the protagonist is trying to do, sending them off to accomplish the thing, and letting the reader experience for ourselves the triumph or failure if they succeed or fail.

Put storytelling essentials on the page

Show don’t tell is an oft-misunderstood bit of writing advice. Sometimes writers think that if they put a character’s desires on the page, or provide context for why a character is doing what they’re doing, they’re “telling” the reader too much.

There are some writing elements you can’t be too clear about, and they form some of the most important storytelling essentials: motivations, goals, stakes, and plans. You can’t possibly be clear enough about these things.

You’re not telling the reader what is going to happen or is happening, you’re simply helping the reader understand what the character wants and why it matters to them. It’s priming the reader for the story to come.

Think about it. Would you enjoy The Little Mermaid as much if we never knew what Ariel was hoping to do on land? Would it make any sense whatsoever what Belle might see in the Beast if we didn’t know how much she felt misunderstood and craved adventure in the great wide somewhere?

Get those plans on the page! Prime the reader and reap the rewards.

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Art: Equestrian portrait of Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne by Adam Frans van der Meulen