Plot: The Crucible
I’ll say up front here that this idea of “The Crucible” as a plot tool is not my own. I read about it recently in one of the many books on writing I devour during periods of low creativity in my own writing. I believe this particular concept comes from Stein on Writing, an excellent resource that you should all check out.
Here’s a quote: “For plotting an entire work, I especially like the use of a crucible. In ordinary parlance a crucible refers to a vessel in which different ingredients are melded in white hot heat…” – Sol Stein, Stein on Writing
The basic idea is this: For the conflict in your story to be effective and believable, the parties involved have to be unable to leave. So if your story is about a man and woman who initially rub each other the wrong way but end up falling in love, they need to have some mutual reason for interacting with one another beyond that first meeting despite the fact that they don’t get along. Maybe their mutual best friend is dying and they have to be at his side or a terrorist group has stolen the heroine’s precious pet fire-breathing frog and the hero has been assigned to help her get it back. Who knows.
The point is that for a conflict to be sustainable and believable to the reader, the characters need a reason to stay in the conflict. Human nature tells us that most people don’t seek out conflict and unless you’ve clearly created a conflict-prone character, the reader won’t believe the conflict is real if you don’t give the characters a reason to come back for more.
This holds especially true for the hero-villain conflict. When one event/situation/relationship can put two people at cross purposes and keep them that way, it’s a crucible. Maybe they’re related, or work together, or are married…
So, pull out your plot. Think it over. What vessel are you pouring your characters into so they can clash and meld? Is it strong enough to hold the characters you’ve created? How could you make it stronger (give the characters more incentive to stay close to one another and fight for what they think is right/what they need)?
