Writing With Hobbits: Week 3 (Adult) • The Habit

Lecture 7: Some Thoughts About Plot

Writing Exercise

Outline a couple of scenes in which you run a character through the desire-choice-consequence cycle at least twice:

1. Put your character in a situation that requires a choice.
2. Now consider what your character wants.
3. Be sure your character’s choice grows out of those desires.
4. What are the consequences of that choice?
5. Do those consequences change what the character wants? Do they change the character’s available choices?

Lecture 8: Freytag’s Pyramid

Writing Exercise

Think of three stories with which you are familiar. Try to map each of those stories’ plots against Freytag’s Pyramid.

1. What is the initial equilibrium?
2. What inciting incident disrupts that equilibrium?
3. What events mark the rising action?
4. What happens at the climax?
5. How would you describe the new equilibrium at the end? How is it different from the initial equilibrium?

Lecture 9: Character Development

Writing Exercise

Write a scene in which you develop a character by showing how another character reacts to or interacts with him or her.