Can you give me an example of how Truth, Evidence, Suspicion, Falsehood might fit together under Developing a Plan?
This might be a bit tricky for people since your question is from the PSR so it’s very specific to your story.
Is this your MC throughline? Maybe during this act your MC is trying to piece something together regarding his personal issues – figure something out or create a mental image (which may or may not be a “plan”). To him, it feels like in order to do so he’s examining the truth or falsehood of something – maybe there was some lie he always believed, and now he’s trying to get to the bottom of it, find evidence to support his suspicions, etc. Or maybe he’s the one lying and withholding truth while others are trying to get to the bottom of it.
With the order you gave it might work like:
- He has the opportunity to tell the truth, but doesn’t (withholding truth)
- New evidence comes up that might show he’s lying, so he covers it up
- His behaviour raises people’s suspicions
- He has to tell a flat out lie, daring people to call him a liar. (Alternately – he admits he’s been lying)
Now, since the above was just an example it turned out kind of one-dimensional – it’s kind of all about the same thing, very linear. That may or may not be what you want in your book, and it’s definitely not required, e.g. the suspicion might come into it from something else, as long as it’s still related to personal issues. Totally depends on what you’re going for.
I hope that helps.
Thanks, but how does
He has the opportunity to tell the truth, but doesn’t (withholding truth)
New evidence comes up that might show he’s lying, so he covers it up
His behaviour raises people’s suspicions
He has to tell a flat out lie, daring people to call him a liar. (Alternately – he admits he’s been lying)
relate to Developing a Plan?
“Developing a Plan” is one of the most problematic items in the newer terminology. It’s more of a gist – works in certain instances but not all. Use Conceptualizing instead.
The best way to get a feel for it is to think of that feeling you have when you open up a box of IKEA furniture and pull out the wordless instructions. You need to conceptualize the thing, piece together the weird images on the instructions to create an image / concept in your head, and yes, develop a plan to put it together.
In American Beauty, “life in suburbia” is like the IKEA box, and the instructions for it are just as vague. (and they realize that they’ve been putting together furniture in an uncomfortable, unfulfilling way their whole lives, and try to figure out how to do it differently, with tragic results)
So in your MC signpost, all those things relate to how others are trying to piece together or figure out what’s really going on with the MC, and the MC trying to prevent them from getting that correct mental picture of things. Which also likely requires some conceptualizing or planing on the MC’s part to throw them off.
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Okay, so, Luke is hiding his role in his little brother’s death. Also, the story starts with him in counseling as people are trying to discover the source of his demons (such as why he threw away the scholarship by taking the car joyriding).
open in the counselor’s office where Luke is obviously hiding some truth
??
Evidence -> Suspicion
Luke & Stepdad talking in Luke’s room, Stepdad notices the old baseball* on Luke’s shelf. Stepdad picks it up saying either “Hey we never play catch anymore, let’s toss it around” or “why do you still have this old thing, it’s falling apart – looks like it spent a week underwater or something?” Either way Luke’s response to this is off and it raises Stepdad’s suspicions.
* the one he convinced his brother to go after on the ice
Falsehood
Luke lies to his stepdad about something, which makes him feel bad because he’s supposed to take care of his stepdad, not hurt him by lying. (e.g. maybe he needs to leave with Boone & gang now and needs to lie about where he’s going? “be back soon…” or is that part later?) I feel like it would be cool if Luke knew this lie would be hurtful, like his stepdad would figure out the lie soon enough. But that’s just an idea, it could be any Falsehood.
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I watched episode 1 season 2.
“The Planet of the Apes was just the beginning–what lies BENEATH may be the end!”
–ad for BTPOTA