Authors: Ronald B Tobias
A major part of the quest is the search itself and the wisdom the main character accumulates along the way. She must be psychologically ready to receive the wisdom, and therefore the search becomes a series of successive classes. She should graduate one class before moving on to the next.
STRUCTURE OF THE QUEST PLOT
Act One
In Act One (setup), the hero is at the point of origination, usually home. A force moves him to act, either out of necessity or by desire.
In
Jason and the Golden Fleece,
Jason, who has been living a blissful existence on a mountaintop with a centaur (half-man, half-horse), finds out that his uncle, the evil king, has stolen the crown that is rightfully his. So Jason goes off to demand his throne.
Gilgamesh, on the other hand, is busy at the beginning of the story building the Great Wall of Babylon. He's not actually building the wall himself; he's got the city's inhabitants working double
overtime to get it done. The people are so exhausted (and underpaid) that they petition the gods to send someone to stop the madman. One of the gods figures it's time to teach the king a lesson and creates a warrior out of clay to fight the king.
Don Quixote starts out at home, too. He's been reading too many romances about chivalry and suddenly fancies himself a knight. He dons his grandfather's armor, gets on his rickety old horse, and sets out on his first adventure.
Dorothy, too, is unhappy with her state of affairs. An orphan, she wants to run away from the farm where she lives with her Aunt Em and Uncle Henry, whom she accuses of being "unappre-ciative." She also wants to get away from her nasty neighbor, Miss Gulch, who's been threatening to kill her dog.
In each case, something spurs the protagonist to action: Jason's desire to become king; Gilgamesh's need to defend himself against the clay warrior from Hell; Don Quixote's desire to become a knight and make a difference in an indifferent world; and Dorothy's decision to run away from home. The authors don't spend a lot of time telling us who the hero is, why the hero is unhappy and what the hero intends to do about it. In each case, the quest starts with immediate decisions to act.
Then the story enters a transitional phase. The decision to act leads directly to the first major event away from home.
Jason shows up at the king's palace. In those days it was common to have an oracle warn you to watch out for a man with only one shoe, and when Jason shows up with only one sandal, the king knows who he is and pretends to welcome him—while trying to figure out how to kill him. They have a great feast and the king tells the story about the Golden Fleece.
To the king's surprise, Jason pledges to get the fleece back. The king thinks it's a great idea and, to give Jason the proper incentive, he offers to give Jason his throne back if he's successful. (He figures Jason has no chance to pull it off, so what the hey.) Jason puts together a crew that is a cross between
The Magnificent Seven
and
The Dirty Dozen
and sets off to find the Golden Fleece.
Don Quixote goes through a similar trial. His first encounter on the road is with some traveling salesmen who beat him up when he challenges them to a passage at arms. It's his first test as a knight, and he flunks it miserably. He must go home to recover from his lumps and bruises. Meanwhile, Don Q's friends, fearing for his mental health, burn all his books. Of course this convinces Don Quixote that his books are being held hostage by an evil wizard. So it's back on the road for Don Q.
Gilgamesh has other problems. A goddess sends down a clay man named Enkidu to teach him a lesson he won't forget for abusing his people. Enkidu shows up at the temple playing the role of bouncer. He refuses to let Gilgamesh into the temple. Gilgamesh, who isn't used to hearing no for an answer, challenges Enkidu to a Babylonian version of a duel.
The pair duke it out. But it's a draw. Enkidu is impressed; so is Gilgamesh. The pair become solid friends. They go off together to fight the dreadful giant Humbuba.
Dorothy's initial adventure is no less bizarre. She's run away to the carnival, but Professor Marvel, the carny showman, convinces her to go back to her family. Before she can make it back, a Kansas "twister" snatches her—house, dog and all.
When the house finally touches down, Dorothy finds herself in the brilliant, garish, Technicolor world of Oz. The first thing she sees are the Munchkins, who are happily singing "Ding dong, the wicked witch is dead." Dorothy's house, it seems, has landed on top of the witch.
In each case, the first incident, the
motivating incident,
prompts the hero to leave home. It isn't enough for him simply to want to go; something must spur him on. There may be doubt in the hero's mind about leaving (as with Don Quixote and Dorothy), but the motivating incident turns the tide. It establishes the hero, the hero's "home base," and the reason for leaving.
The motivating incident also serves as a bridge between the first and second acts.
As you sketch the action for your adaptation of this plot, show your character moving from one state to another. All of the characters we've discussed here start out in a kind of innocent or naive state. They don't fully understand what lies ahead of them. They think they know what they want, but experience teaches them something else.
Your character should clearly identify what she is searching for. Maybe it's a desire to get away from home and find a new life—a plot often used with teenagers who feel stifled by their parents and their school. In any case, invest your character with a strong desire to go somewhere, to do something. Your character should have a strong mental image (which may be accurate or totally off base) of what she wants to achieve, and a strong desire to achieve it. She also should be strongly motivated, with forces at work that make her action imperative. Make sure you give your character the proper motivation to go on the quest.
The intent of the character—to find whatever goal he has set for himself—is different from the motivation. Intent is what the character wants to achieve; motivation is his reason for wanting to achieve it.
We should learn a lot about the main character in the first act. We want to understand why he's motivated to go on the quest. The experience is almost certain to change everything—but for now at least we know where the character is "coming from."
The Buddy Concept.
The main character rarely travels alone. Gilgamesh has Enkidu; Don Quixote has Sancho Panza; Jason has his Argonauts; Dorothy has the Tin Woodman, the Lion and the Scarecrow. The buddies are usually picked up late in the first act (as a result of the motivating incident). In none of the previous examples does the hero begin with all his or her buddies; they are acquired along the way. This gives us time to focus on the protagonist without complicating issues with a supporting cast.
The majority of these stories also have a helpful character, someone or something that helps the protagonist achieve her quest. It may be Lancelot's Lady of the Lake in
Le Morte d'Arthur
or the good witch Glinda in
The Wizard of Oz.
In fairy tales, it is usually an animal—anything from a toad to a dove—that helps the main character find what she's seeking. The protagonist isn't a loner; she relies on the help of others.
If you plan to use a helpful friend or animal, the best place to introduce this character is in the first act. Otherwise you may be accused of contriving the story by bringing on a character at just the right time to help your hero out of a tight spot. Lay your groundwork in Act One, and follow through in Act Two.
Act Two
As basic as it sounds, the middle connects the beginning and the end. Act One asks the question, and Act Three gives the answer. All Act Two does is make the story interesting.
Act One of
The Wizard of Oz
asks the question: Will Dorothy find her way back home? Act Three answers the question: Yes.
Will Jason find the Golden Fleece (and get his kingdom back)? Yes.
Will Gilgamesh find the secret of life? Yes, but it doesn't do him any good.
Will Don Quixote find his lady Dulcinea del Toboso (who's really a chesty farm girl with a great talent for salting pork)? Yes.
(Notice the word
find
in each case? This is the bottom-line description of a quest plot.)
So Act One provides the question, and Act Three provides the answer. That leaves Act Two. In literature, the shortest distance between two points is not a straight line.
Act Two is the flavoring, the spice. If we know the answer as soon as Act Two, the story will be boring. The idea is to keep the reader wondering. A roller coaster ride would be no fun without a middle. If, just as your car got started, you pulled in at the end, you'd feel cheated. It's the ride, the going up and down, the unexpected turns, the bursts of speed and the topsy-turvy feeling of uncertainty that we love most.
The same is true for a story. The journey is as important as the end: As with a roller coaster, there's a specific path that connects the start to the finish. Once connected, the entire journey makes sense, each step of the way contributes to understanding either character or the object of the quest.
Dorothy doesn't go to an all-night diner and pick up some bikers from Oakland. Nor does Jason enter his chariot in the Athens 500. Those events have nothing to do with their stories. They might make great scenes,
but—
you know the drill.
Jason and his Argonauts head out for the Golden Fleece, but before they get there, they must prove to the gods (and to the reader) that they are worthy men, and that Jason possesses both the strength and wisdom to be king. These aren't lessons that ever come easily.
Gilgamesh has a tough task ahead, too. In the second act, after the dynamic duo slay the giant Humbuba as their first test of strength together, Enkidu starts to have nightmares about death. The two get tangled up with the gods, who don't like the way things are going, and Enkidu dies. Gilgamesh is heartbroken. He decides to find Utnapishtim, the man who holds the secret of life, so he can bring back his pal.
Don Quixote is a loosely constructed book. Cervantes was a satirist, and he took time to poke fun at all the literary and social conventions of the day. Don Quixote seems to wander in all directions, as if Cervantes barely had a handle on his topic. But the book is a panoramic view of the people and the times. We follow the crazy old man because of what each of these episodes teaches us: about the clash between idealism and materialism; about the nature of the Spanish character; about the foibles of madness and inspiration; and about the basic nature of character. (Even though Don Quixote goes from adventure to adventure as a knight errant intent on saving the world, his real quest is for his lady Dulcinea, even though she exists only in his fevered mind.)
Dorothy's quest is similar to Don Quixote's in many ways. It's not hard to see the parallels between the great knight of La Man-cha and the brainless Scarecrow, the heartless Tin Woodman and the Cowardly Lion. Although their adventures have a different spin on them, the effect is the same. (We don't share Don Quixote's hallucinations with him—we see them from a distance—but we share Dorothy's hallucinations with her as if they were real.)
Each of Dorothy's buddies has his own quest—the Scarecrow, his brain; the Tin Woodman, his heart; and the Cowardly Lion, his courage. Together they survive the various scourges of the Wicked Witch, including winged monkeys, ferocious talking trees and sleep-inducing flowers. (All this may sound fantastic, but it's no more bizarre than what the Argonauts encounter on their trip.)
As you begin your Act Two, try to imagine what difficulties would make the most interesting and challenging obstacles for your main character. The skill in making obstacles is not just presenting hurdles for your character to run over, but hurdles that somehow alter your character. These are life experiences that
teach
your character something about his quest and something about himself. Any quest, such as with Fred C. Dobbs's search for gold in
Treasure of the Sierra Madre,
is ultimately a journey about self. Fred Dobbs isn't the person he thought he was. Life tests him, and he fails.
You also need to keep the challenges interesting. If your character climbs a mountain, the obstacles he encounters may be obvious: a piton gives way, a snowstorm settles in, a landslide blocks his path. But these obstacles in themselves are only physical. It's how these obstacles
affect
the character that counts. Does he give up? Does he fall into a deep depression? Does he decide to take a desperate chance? The mountain should teach the character each step of the way.
The true relationship between character and event depends on your ability to bring the two of them together.
Act Three
Plot is a game of connect-the-dots. Each scene you write is a dot. If you're a good writer, the reader will understand the relationships between any two dots and connect them. When it's all over, the reader has the completed picture before her.