ah fuck

"Useless ray of goddamn sunshine. You could have taught an old fool like me a lot."

A Quick Reference to 5 Plot Structures

8-STAGE PLOT STRUCTURE (Nigel Watts)

Stasis: once upon a time

Trigger: something out of the ordinary happens

Quest: causing the protagonist to seek something

Surprise: but things don’t go as expected

Critical Choice: forcing the protagonist to make a difficult decision

Climax: which has consequences

Reversal: the result of which is a change in status

Resolution: and they all lived happily ever after (or didn’t).

HOW TO TELL A STORY (Peter Rubie)

Once upon a time, something happened to someone,

and he decided that he would pursue a goal.

So he devised a plan of action,

and even though there were forces trying to stop him,

he moved forward because there was a lot at stake.

And just as things seemed as bad as they could get,

he learned an important lesson,

and when offered the prize he had sought so strenuously,

he had to decide whether or not to take it,

and in making that decision he satisfied a need

that had been created by something in his past.

MONOMYTH / THE HERO'S JOURNEY (Joseph Campbell)

Separation

The Call to Adventure

The Refusal of the Call

Supernatural Aid

The Crossing of the First Threshold

Belly of the Whale

Initiation

The Road of Trials

Meeting with the Goddess

Woman as Temptress

Atonement with the Father

Apotheosis

The Ultimate Boon

Return

Refusal of the Return

The Magic Flight

Rescue From Without

The Crossing of the Return Threshold

Master of Two Worlds

Freedom to Live

22-STEP STRUCTURE (John Truby)

Self-revelation, need and desire - combination of steps 20, 3 & 5

Ghost and story world - the hero’s counterdesire

Weakness and need* - the hero’s flaws are keeping them from having the life they desire

Inciting event - outside event that spurs the hero to action

Desire* - the hero’s story goal

Ally or allies - the hero gains an ally

Opponent and/or mystery* - an opponent or mystery that keeps the hero from reaching their goal

Fake-ally opponent - a shapeshifter or false friend

First revelation and decision: changed desire and motive - a revelation causes the hero to make a decision that results in a change in direction

Plan* - the hero’s plan to overcome their opponent and reach their goal

Opponent’s plan main counterattack - the opponent’s plan to overcome their opponent and reach their goal

Drive - increasingly desperate (and possibly immoral) series of actions the hero takes to defeat the opponent and reach the goal

Attack by ally - an ally confronts the hero about their increasing desperation and immorality

Apparent defeat - lowest point when the hero believes they’ve lost; for fall arcs, this may be an “Apparent victory” instead

Second revelation & decision: obsessive drive, changed desire and motive - the hero receives a new piece of information that allows them to continue towards their goal

Audience revelation - the audience learns a vital piece of information that’s kept from the hero

Third revelation and decision - the hero learns something about the opponent that will help them win

Gate, gauntlet, visit to death - pressure on the hero grows and they’re forced to face difficult trials

Battle* - a final (violent) conflict that determines who wins

Self-revelation* - the hero learns who they truly are

Moral decision - a decision that proves what the hero has learnt in the self-revelation

New equilibrium* - the need and desire have been fulfilled and the world goes back to normal, though the hero has changed

Stars (*) mark the minimum 7 steps that, according to Truby, are essential to every story.

ONE PAGE NOVEL (Eva Deverell)

Brainstorm 3...

...names:

...wants/goals/needs:

...locations:

...objects:

...obstacles:

...things lost/sacrificed:

...occupations:

...things on your mind:

Plotting Order

Resolution

Stasis

Shift

Trigger

Quest

Power

Bolt

Defeat

Story Order

Stasis: character isn’t living to their full potential - opposite state to Resolution.

Trigger: an internal or external impulse (or both) forces the character to take the first step towards their Resolution state.

Quest: character enters the new world of adventure, meets mentors or allies and makes a (bad) plan to solve the problem the Trigger created.

Bolt: (bad) Quest plan inevitably goes wrong.

Shift: character makes the paradigm shift necessary for them to inhabit their Resolution state.

Defeat: character makes the ultimate sacrifice.

Power: character finds a hidden power within themselves that allows them to seize the prize.

Resolution: character is living up to their full potential in their Resolution state.

NOTES

Choose a plot structure that works best for you.

Deviate from it as needed. It is a guide after all.

Some writers and editors advice you stick with a plot structure you have chosen:

Don’t look for an alternative as soon as you start to become frustrated with your first choice. You’ll only end up wasting time.

As with everything else, there is no single perfect choice.

And it may be the case that different projects need different methods.

Keep experimenting. Keep writing. Keep improving.

Hi! This is a very vast question and a lot of it would depend on the character's actual disability - I have completely different wishlists for what I'd like to see intellectually disabled characters do versus what I'd like to see characters with facial differences do. Different stereotypes and tropes affect different groups of disabled people differently - to work with this fact, the below list will try to account for as large amount of disabled character as I can reasonably think of, but it won't have as much detail as you might want. If you have a specific kind of character in mind, feel free to send another ask.

Not in specific order:

Disabled characters being in love. Disabled x disabled, disabled x abled, disabled x very different kind of disabled, all these variants but including more than 2 characters (since I've yet to see a polyamorous disabled character), all of this. And I mean in actual relationships, not the pitiful and devoid of actual chemistry thing that we usually get (think "really sad disabled man only becomes happy after an abled woman takes pity on him, but they never kiss or god forbid have sex because that's gross and the disableds surely don't do that anyway"). I want to see an interabled couple going through IVF because they want to have kids, a wife with hemiplegia getting to grow old and wrinkly with her autistic husband, a lesbian with Treacher Collins syndrome moving in with her chronically ill girlfriend after a month of knowing each other, DeafBlind men getting hands on each other in the bathroom of a shitty nightclub, a trans woman with autism asking out a trans man with Down syndrome via her AAC tablet, a neurotypical guy with an obvious crush on his classmate with cerebral palsy. I want to actually see disabled people being shown as desirable partners, good parents and grandparents, potential crushes, going through some new feelings and going on both good and bad dates, from all walks of life, of all sexualities and genders. Just like abled people.

Disabled characters participating in their community. Especially severely and/or visibly disabled characters. This is obviously a concept as vague as it could possibly be, but a big problem with a lot of disabled characters is that they don't... do anything. Not in the sense that they aren't "active enough", but that they aren't really... characters. They're often reduced to a family member who's at home and maybe the abled character takes care of them sometimes, but that's seemingly all that happens; they have no interests, hobbies, agency, preferences, or an internal thought process. All they do is wait for an abled savior to do something to them, not even with them. I want to see more disabled characters who have jobs (whether it's a "regular" job, a supported employment workplace, a creative job that maybe they can only do a few hours a week, or self-care as a full-time job kind of thing), participating in hobbies that are accessible and/or modified to their ability level, emailing or sending pigeon letters to their friends, trying out new stuff that they're interested in, having actual complex relationships with their caregivers. Anything to actually make them feel like characters that exist in their setting, not just cardboard cutouts that the author had no ideas for.

Disabled characters who are a part of real-world disability (and adjacent) culture. Obviously also a vast topic. Most disabled characters, regardless of setting, are completely separated from concepts that were made by disabled people for disabled people; usually the connection to disability is their actual medical condition and a sterile mobility aid. This is not incorrect or bad to represent since that describes a lot of people, but I'd like to simply see more variety. I want to see disabled characters who do parasports, who are excited about tactile art, went to blind/Deaf/SPED schools, call themselves #a babe with a mobility aid, decorate their AAC device, learn about disabled history, experience Feelings when hearing that Neanderthals cared about their disabled children, go to disability-centric events or support groups to meet people similar to them. Do all disabled people do these? Absolutely not, but I'd like for even 1% of fictional characters to represent those who do.

Yeah I just want more disabled characters doing sports. As in real-life sports that real-life disabled people do, apologies to all the fantasy swordfighting that's out there. There are so many sports out there we can do, some are adapted, some have a sitting or wheelchair version, while others were made specifically for us. Team sports are such a good opportunity to have your character have a community of people like them, have interesting dynamics, yet the only anything I can think of that's about it is REAL by Takehiko Inoue (wheelchair basketball) and the art by @/gayaest / @/sproutwiki (sitting volleyball). Also some Paralympics documentaries that I can count on a single hand - there's like three of them. I want to see characters who are starting out and really suck at their sport, ones who are decent, ones with ridiculous sports-anime-level over the top abilities. I want to see all kinds of sports done by all kinds of disabled characters; blind kids learning goalball with their blind parents, quadriplegic guys working their ass off to qualify for national murderball championships, folks using sticker-covered bright-pink ramps in their boccia games, people with POTS playing along with their abled partner on their wheelchair rugby league team, standing fencers becoming disabled and adapting to wheelchair fencing that they love just as much. More disabled people having fun, knowing other disabled people, having interests! Also, parasports are just cool as fuck and interesting to both watch and read about.

Disabled characters getting to make bad decisions. Disability representation is often extremely black-and-white in terms of morality: the character is either an angel who always does the right thing and talks about being grateful a lot, or the character is comically evil, wanting revenge because of their disability, hating their disability, constantly in grief and anger since not a single mildly ok thing happened to them since they became disabled. Neither of these feel like real people. Disabled characters should be able to say hurtful things, get mad, lie, and whatever else, without being demonized to hell for it the same way abled characters are. They should be allowed to consciously make a decision that they shouldn't take (also known as "dignity of risk" in context of disability). They should get the same consequences for mistakes as everyone else and need to have the opportunities to actually make them. In a much shorter way: more complex disabled characters.

These are things that I'd enjoy seeing for disabled characters. But the main thing would probably be that I want more of them. The scope of disabled characters in media is so painfully narrow because there's so few of them + they're usually capped at one per series. More writing featuring multiple disabled people please.

Here is a list of wishes from other mods who wanted me to throw them here:

Disabled characters who act like the author did more than a 10 min google search about their disabilities. [So authors doing actual research.]

More disabled characters of color. A lot of time disabled characters are white because it's only acceptable for them to be one kind of marginalized. In real life that's not how it works. People of color are disabled too!

Characters with comorbidities, characters with physical and mental health and developmental symptoms. Disability doesn't just come with one cut and dry disorder all the time - you can even be diagnosed with some things and undiagnosed with others.

[A character can have 5 comorbidities, or 5 completely unrelated disabilities - both happen. Or, most frequently, a bit of both.]

Characters existing in all parts of their diagnostic journey. [So characters who are yet to be diagnosed, currently investigating their symptoms, ones recently diagnosed, and ones who had their diagnosis for their whole lives - and as mentioned previously, you can be on one stage with disability A, and on another with disability B.]

Characters whose whole life isn't just tragedy/struggle! See this a lot when a story with disabled character is just about how life is hard for them as disabled person. Would love disabled characters being leads in other genres and just existing as people. Not to say disability isn't a struggle, but there is more to life and person than disability.