Please note, before you read any of this and then proceed to accuse me of "acquiring" this theory from somewhere else: this is indeed my own idea. However, this idea is pretty much mostly common sense; I'm just trying to codify it, in a sense. Writing stuff down makes things make sense in my own head. OK, enough introspection: on to my unveiling of CPS Theory*!
So what is CPS Theory, and what does it stand for? Well, CPS Theory is my way of looking at how narratives should work, and why narratives that break CPS Theory fail. CPS Theory stands for Character, Plot, and Setting. They're the three crucial ingredients of story-telling, and each one is dependent on the other. When writing something, I believe that if you neglect CPS Theory, you will fail. As a side note, the acronym CPS isn't special - it's not catchy, just descriptive. You could just as easy change the order of the letters or stylise it as CPS or even try PPP - People, Plot, Place*. I personally like the stylised CPS since it doesn't implicitly prioritise any of the three elements - they're all on an equal footing. Anyway: to the explanation.
Here's how one might naively imagine how writing a story works: characters act out the plot in some setting. I think that's misguided - it implies that the three elements aren't inherently connected. You could change the setting and the characters and plot wouldn't change. Here's my take on it: characters create the plot in response to themselves and the setting. They are all connected, and changing one necessarily means changing the others. That's another reason I like the stylised CPS: each one is adjacent to the others.
Now, how are all these elements connected, and how do you use CPS Theory to improve your writing? I'll go through the element easiest to change: setting. By and large, you can change the setting - make it as fantastic as you possibly can - and people will accept that. People, as a rule, don't mind an unrealistic setting. In fact, that's a lot of why people read novels or watch movies. It's the power of the human imagination. And I will not stop reading a book because the setting is awful. I don't really care that much about the setting once I start reading; for a lot of genres, the setting is the hook, the setting is what starts you off. Plot and characters keep you reading. Take, for example, Twilight. I don't care if you have a problem with the vampires sparkling - vampires didn't even die in the sun until Nosferatu in 1922. A lot of traditional vampire folklore has fallen by the wayside; you don't hear about vampires not being able to cross running water or being forced to count grains of rice if dropped on the ground anymore. Twilight is generally maligned because of its characters or plot - setting is just the most available thing people can point out. You want to know the setting of Twilight? Vampires live in secret, have superpowers, and are run by what is the equivalent of the Mafia. Superpowered vampire Mafia? Sign me up! Do I care about sparkling? Heck no! I will come back to Twilight later, because it's admittedly an easy example. I will attempt to speak about it objectively though - you will not hear me unfairly malign things just because that's what's in at the moment.
But, I'm digressing. What I'm trying to say is that setting is the most malleable of the three elements, because of the range of what you can do with setting. With everything from real life to grand galaxies with futuristic technologies to magic in medieval times, you can make almost anything your imagination creates and your audience will enjoy the ride. This, however, comes with a downside: if you do it wrong, it is awful. If your setting is obviously broken or self-contradictory, or if it's full of negative values for no reason, then you pretty much set yourself up to fail from the get-go. It can lead to things like MacGuffins - objects obviously put in to drive the plot - or Unfortunate Implications - where the setting creates unintentionally offensive messages. That's not to say you can't have settings that the audience detests - but only if you are supposed to detest them. 1984 is an excellent example of an amazing setting that we are not supposed to like - and that's the point of it. In fact, 1984 is one of the rare examples where the characters and the plot are secondary to the setting - it's usually the other way around. But, apart from those rare gems, setting is the malleable background to the heart and soul of the narrative.
Now, on to the next element, the hardest to change: the plot. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, 'but plot is easy to change!' No. No it is not. A plot that doesn't organically arise from interactions between characters and the setting will seem forced and people will not feel involved. A plot that doesn't arise from the interplay between characters and setting will lead to things like plot holes or out-of-character moments. You can't make the plot do something. You can only change the characters and the setting to get the plot the way you want it. A plot that seems forced, disconnected, or artificial, will not pull your audience in and entertain them. Either your characters will do something out of character, in which case your audience will start empathising with them less, or you will get things like plot holes or plots that just don't make proper sense. Remember this: your plot is unmalleable. Your plot is unyielding. If you try to bend it, it will snap. The only way to change what you want your plot to be without breaking it is to change everything else.
So, with plot and setting finished, we have one last element - characters. Characters are the reason we read books and watch movies. We empathise with these characters, if written properly, and hope they succeed in their endeavours. We experience what they experience, and share their emotions. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the very fact that characters exist is one of the greatest magics humans can weave - these simple words on a page, when we read them, create people that we are almost friends with, people that we know intimately, people that we might even shed a tear about if something happens to them*... that's the magic* of writing.
It is extremely imperative you don't screw this step up.
Writing characters is the hardest thing about writing in general. But why is that? Well, for one, the best characters seem like real people, whereas the best settings aren't necessarily real. Characters have to be relatable. Settings don't. Now, there are two ways to write a character your audience will feel connected with, and one of them is wrong. The first way is to create a fully well-rounded, three-dimensional character, with their own unique qualities and flaws, who the audience can relate to, almost as if they are meeting a real person. If you write this character well, then your audience almost becomes friends with these people. This sort of character solves problems that are thrown at them (as a result of interaction with the setting or other characters!) by what you would expect a real person to do - by doing things their personality dictates, while using what the setting gives them. Harry Potter is an excellent example: he seems real. He has his own flaws - he's impulsive, and moody, and sometimes a slave to his emotions - but he also has a lot of positive character traits; he's kind, loving, courageous, loyal, strong-willed... in short, he seems like a real person to us. We connect with him. The downside to this sort of character is that they are organic, and they will not necessarily obey your rules or what you want your plot to do. There's an excellent quote by Laurell K. Hamilton* that really sums this up: "My characters surprise me constantly. My characters are like my friends - I can give them advice, but they don't have to take it. If your characters are real, then they surprise you, just like real people."
The second way is to write your character as a blank slate, with no real discernable character traits. This lets the audience project themselves on to said character, in an attempt to create something the audience can connect with. This sort of character solves problems by... well, since they have no real character traits to speak of, either the plot moves the character along, or, if the character is actually actively affecting what's happening in the narrative, then they are often given some sort of incredible superpower by the setting in order to solve said problem. Now, Harry Potter is not this sort of character just because he has magic. To quote the sixth book, "The trouble is, the other side can do magic too." This is a sort of superpower which is obviously and inherently overpowered with respect to the powers of other characters in the setting. If a character is creative with their power, which then becomes overpowered, this is less of a problem; that's using their personality. I'm talking about simple point-and-click overpoweredness: you don't need a personality, you just use the power.
I'm going to digress shortly here to go into how thrilling plots require challenges. If it's obvious the protagonist is going to succeed, and it's obvious how they're going to succeed, then we don't really care what happens: we know what's going to happen. Similarly, if it seems impossible for the protagonist to succeed, and then they use some power the audience has no idea about and could have no idea about, it will seem to your audience that you had no idea how to continue the narrative without the protagonist dying. If you want your audience to be emotionally involved in the story, then the characters need to face challenges of some description, and they need to succeed or fail in these challenges wholly using the resources available to them that the audience is aware of. To quote Eliezer Yudkowsky, who just knows things: "You can't make Frodo a Jedi unless you give Sauron the Death Star." In a less jocular saying, "The premise of a story is a conflict and its resolution."
So now I've gone into what makes a setting, plot, and character, let's look at an example of a way a story does not take CPS Theory into account: Twilight. Firstly: Bella is a Mary Sue. This is not me talking, this is Stephenie Meyer talking. And I quote: "I left out a detailed description of Bella in the book so that the reader could more easily step into her shoes." This is the complete opposite of how you deal with character creation. People also don't like Twilight because of the rampant Unfortunate Implications in it, but the main problem, I think, are the Mary Sues in the series. This is especially heinous considering Twilight is a romance series - it doesn't just need three-dimensional characters we can relate to, it depends on them. You might be able to get away with more two-dimensional characters in, say, the action genre, where people like the genre because of the plots rather than the characters, though I will say I think entrancing plots come from an emotionally involved audience, which comes from relatable characters. In a romance, it's characters that matter. Moreover, it is a foregone conclusion: once Bella becomes a vampire, she automatically falls irrevocably in love with Edward. There is no real romantic conflict in Twilight because we know that once Bella becomes a vampire, there will be no more conflict. It's over: they're in love forever. What this leaves us with is a series that may be entertaining, but in the same way a kiddy pool is: it's a shallow book series, with no real depth to speak of. There's nothing really below the surface in Twilight.
So how could you improve Twilight? Well, the first and most obvious way is to get rid of the Mary Sue-ness of the characters and have us become emotionally attached to them. The second way is to remove it as a romance genre, since we know the conclusion is foregone. You could make it an action series or a suspense series or an adventure series, but it's in need of the bartender mantra: I don't care where the series goes, but it can't stay here. I've already said the setting is solid. And, I have good news: such a story has already been written, and is surprisingly fantastic. I present to you, Luminosity - a re-imagining of Twilight in a similar style to Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, where major conflicts are solved by the main character thinking about things. Let me quote directly from the first page of the narrative: "My favorite three questions are, What do I want?, What do I have?, and
How can I best use the latter to get the former?" If you aren't already convinced that this narrative is both a) very different stylistically from Twilight, and b) amazing, I suggest you go read that quote again. Interestingly, this story also succeeds when it comes to CPS Theory, where the Characters are relatable, the Setting is interesting, and the Plot, without giving too much away, is created as a direct result of the interaction between the former two elements. Is this where I say that a Twilight fan-fiction is genuinely good writing? Yes. Yes I do. And I humbly invite you to read the book before you (admittedly justifiably) label me an idiot with no idea of what good literature is.
Well, I believe I've fairly comprehensively explained my take on how narratives should be written, and provided some examples on how to put my theory into action. I hope that I have inspired you to start thinking about how narratives should work, and, if you are a fledgling writer, that I have improved your writing in some way. Happy New Year!
AB
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