As novelists, we work hard on our stories, and as a consequence, we usually fall in love with them a little.
I think that’s one of the reasons it can be hard to see the glaring issues in those stories from our reader’s point of view.
One of the most common ways that I see otherwise excellent manuscripts go astray is in the ways that the characters actually make decisions or take actions (or in the ways that these things are communicated to the reader).
These are issues with the story logic, and they can hide in plain sight in your novel.
Before I get to some of these nuances, though, let’s revisit the most basic thing, as far as this side of your novel goes, and it’s the fact that your protagonist must have a goal in your novel.
Here’s why the protagonist’s goal is so important:
- It imparts the story with a sense of cohesion, the sense of being about
The story is about the protagonist’s quest to figure out/find/achieve X. Meaning, there may be many different episodes or incidents or set changes or characters who come and go, but the thing that ties the whole story together is X.
- It contributes to narrative momentum
Narrative momentum is generated when the reader is compelled to turn the pages in order to see what happens next. The quest for the protagonist’s goal is a natural source of narrative tension: We keep turning the pages because want to see whether or not they will achieve it.
- It reflects reality
As human beings, we never do anything without having some sort of agenda or goal: even when we’re chatting up our next door neighbor at the coffee shop, we’re probably seeking to strengthen neighborly ties (or even seeing if we can learn anything about the strange car we saw parked in front of their house last night). This means that your protagonist needs to have a goal simply in order to come across as realistic—even if that goal is just to maintain the status quo in the face of life’s (inevitable) challenges.
Why This Goal?
But even when you have a clear goal for your protagonist in your novel, it’s important to ask yourself why they have chosen that goal.
These sorts of things tend to be easier to see when we have a story example, so let’s say that your protagonist is from a small Southern town, and his higher-order goal (the one he’ll be trying to achieve over the course of the novel) is to become a big-city fashion designer.
What does he do in order to pursue that goal? Let’s say he up and moves to Chicago.
How did he conceive of that idea? Why Chicago and not New York or L.A. (or even Atlanta, for that matter)? And if he doesn’t already know anyone in Chicago, or have a job lined up—well, have you established why your protagonist would decide to do something like that, totally out of the blue?
If the answer is no, then you have an issue with backstory and characterization that will have to be addressed if the story itself is going to make sense to your reader.
Lower-Order Goals
Lower-order goals are ones that support the protagonist’s higher-order goal—meaning, in order to achieve Y, they first have to achieve X.
In this scenario, say that in order to become a big-city fashion designer, your protagonist must convince their favorite designer to grant them an internship, and in order to get that designer to grant them an internship, the protagonist must prove that he can procure the designer’s morning coffee from the coffee shop miles away from the designer’s offices—by an exact time, and at the perfect temperature.
It’s not hard to see how a setup like that would create narrative tension, as the protagonist battles rush-hour traffic, a messed-up coffee order, a chatty dog walker, and maybe even the designer’s sabotaging receptionist, who has taken an instant dislike to the protagonist.
But if there’s any point in this scenario where the reader forgets who this coffee is for, and why it’s so important—meaning, what’s at stake for the protagonist, and how achieving this lower-order goal is critical to achieving their higher-order one—your reader will lose track of the story, period.
At which point, once again, the story won’t quite make sense.
Changes in Goals
But let’s say that, having (by the skin of his teeth) procured the perfect half-caf hazelnut macchiato from across town for his favorite designer, and having thus secured the internship of dreams, your protagonist discovers that he actually…doesn’t enjoy designing clothes.
Instead, he finds that what he really enjoys is helping to dress celebrities—and one celebrity in particular, who becomes his love interest.
At this point, the protagonist’s higher-order goal shifts, from following in the footsteps of his favorite designer to securing the affections of his love interest, whom we’ll call Romeo.
That’s a change that has to be communicated clearly to your readers—first, why the goal of becoming a fashion designer has lost its sway over your protagonist, and second, why Romeo is so compelling as a love interest.
If either of these things are unclear to your reader, you’ll get what I think of as reader whiplash—a condition in which the reader, cruising along at speed, is forced to stop, back up, and reread, in hopes of figuring out what they missed.
In other words, to figure out why the story no longer makes sense.
Secondary Characters
So far so good. But even when you’ve got all that dialed in, it’s still easy to miss gaps in the story logic around secondary characters—meaning, it’s easy to miss the fact that what these characters are doing in your novel doesn’t quite make sense to your reader.
Let’s go back to the fashion designer who sends your protagonist on a quest for the perfect half-caf hazel macchiato from across town. Why does she do that?
Is it just because she’s an unreasonable person, fond of hazing her potential hires in this way, just to see them squirm? Or does she do this because, if you can succeed in such an impossible task, against such impossible odds, then you might just have what it takes to make it in the fashion industry?
You can’t assume that there’s only one way for the reader to interpret any sort of action on the part of a character. As the author, you need to make it clear why your secondary character is doing what they’re doing—both so the story remains clear from the reader’s POV and so that you can remain in control of the characterization.
Because if you imagined, in this scenario, it was the latter driving the fashion designer’s decision, but the reader assumes it was the former? Then your reader is not actually in the same story as the one you’re writing—and will likely be confused, later on, when the fashion designer winds up officiating at the wedding of your protagonist and his Romeo.
In other words: They’ll find themselves in a story that doesn’t quite make sense.
Story Logic in the World at Large
Finally: what happens in the world of your story has to really make sense as well.
Let’s say that there’s a key turn in the plot of your novel wherein the protagonist finally gains the regard of Romeo by dressing him in a suit that gets the attention of a big-name director at a gala event. (That way, this event also brings our protagonist closer to his new goal of becoming a celebrity stylist.)
What is it about this suit that’s so eye-catching and different? And why would this director in particular find this fashion statement so captivating, so in tune with her vision for her next big movie project?
If that bit of story logic doesn’t quite feel convincing to your reader, this important turn of the story as a whole will not feel convincing.
Which is to say, the story itself won’t quite make sense.
Overall, the key to ensuring that the story logic in your novel is sound is to make sure you’re taking a good, hard look at what your characters are doing in the story—and why—as well as at the way that the world is responding to them.
Do all of these things actually make sense? And is the logic around them clear from your reader’s POV?
These issues do tend to hide in plain sight, so now I’d love to hear from you: Has this post spurred any thoughts or insights into your current WIP? If so, please share in the comments.