One Puzzle Piece in the Right Place Can Help You Place The Rest.

Finding out the specifics of one event can lead you to the way you determine the specifics of others. So, I focused on finding one what. Specifically, I focused on finding an Ever Afters-appropriate way for Lena to lose her hands and become a sorceress, preferably in a manner that involved the Director and General Searcaster. 

The Ever Afters contain plenty of battles, bad guys, and sharp blades. Lena could have lost her hands in a regular battle, but that would dilute its impact. 

Adding Specifics - Lena Loses Her Hands to Become a Sorceress.

Who: Already determined--General Searcaster. 

When: In the existing story, I’d already planned one of the major battles, and it was crucial to the overall plot and several subplots. Specifically, I already knew that in the fourth book, the Director's worst nightmare would come true: the Snow Queen would manage to invade Ever After School. 

What: If this plot line was really about Lena reclaiming her power, including her responsibilities and her inventions, it made sense that Lena would have to lose her hands to an invention she made herself. If her inventions are creating damages in a way she never intended, if she experiences personal loss around it, then Lena would forced to grow, rethinking everything to do with her inventions. The loss of her hands and the regaining of them would also echo the loss of Lena’s authority over her inventions and the regaining of that authority without a lot of explanation. 

However, Lena was not the type to make a weapon that cuts and slices on her own. 

So, in the rest of the character arc, I needed to pave out a way that felt natural to her existing character.

Lena already had a habit of solving problems with her inventions. Plus, by the end of the second book, I’d introduced two problems for Lena to puzzle out: 

• Compared to her best friends, she is not an accomplished fighter.

• Because she is a less accomplished fighter, she is at best a liability during a fight. At worst, she is in danger of being left behind entirely. Since this is actually what happened to her in the second book, Lena would be motivated to make sure that it never happened again.

So, I realized that Lena could solve these problems with one new invention: the Flying Bats, an army of baseball bats which move on their own and follow Lena's commands to beat up bad guys. (Again, this was inspired by a fairy tale—specifically a Grimm one: "Table-Be-Set, Gold-Donkey, and Cudgel-out-of-the-Sack." It was one I’d already referred to since I’d renamed “Table-Be-Set” as a “Table of Plenty” and used it as major plot point in the first book.)

This invention, which Lena invents off-stage, in between the events of the second and third book, is the inciting incident to the rest of Lena’s subplot. It’s the answer to “What?” which knits together Lena’s conflict with both General Searcaster and the Director. 

That was the critical puzzle piece, the one that helped the rest of puzzle to fall into place. The rest was a matter of figuring out a “How?” for Lena in the midst of the series’ larger plot (the when’s and where’s) using the Flying Bats and any similar inventions that followed it (the what), involving the Director and/or General Searcaster (the who’s), and Lena returning to her power to reach her fullest expression (the why).

Adding Specifics - An Invention Arc for the Flying Bats.

With an invention, there’s an implicit story arc within it, one you see in this subplot as well as the Back to the Future movies: the invention is used, and either it goes well or not-so-well. Either way, the invention’s appearance is the catalyst for the rest of the conflict. Often, this happens multiple times with different results. 

So, I was able to use that to add a few events to Lena’s subplots, throughout the third book. 

• Test #1: Lena needs to test the invention for the first time. She did—I just found an existing battle for this near the beginning of the third book, and the test run went well. Her inventions help defeat the bad guys. 

• Test #2: Then she used it again, with General Searcaster. This was also an existing battle since it was critical to the plot that the Snow Queen capture the main characters. I just figured out a way that Lena, her inventions, and General Searcaster could be central in that scene. This test did not go well since the sorceress-giant took over the invention for herself.

• Test #3: Then it was used a third time, again by General Searcaster. Again, this was existing battle—it was also critical that the main trio escape the Snow Queen. I just found a way to include the Flying Bats and General Searcaster. It backfired once more, this time in a way helpful to Lena’s friends. But seeing her inventions used in a way that she never intended, Lena is shaken. 

After these tests, the Flying Bats have proven themselves extremely destructive. The potential for destruction determines the rest of Lena’s character arc. It would make sense for the Director to press Lena’s inventions as a resource against bad guys. It would also make sense for Lena to both want to give over all responsibility for her inventions to an important grown-up and to hesitate to follow the Director’s orders to make something even more dangerous than the bats. 

Since she is clever, Lena would try to find a solution which would satisfy the Director’s order as well as Lena’s own peace of mind without a direct confrontation. That solution is the Swords and Axes of Destruction. It’s also a missed opportunity for Lena to take her authority back by setting a boundary and negotiating a boundary with the Director. 

Undervaluing her own influence and importance, she only sees that the Director, in charge of the community, can revoke Lena’s privileges to use the workshop and magical supplies. Lena doesn’t yet see that the Director’s only way to get new inventions is through Lena; if Lena doesn’t cooperate, the Director can’t get any new inventions. There are a lot more ways for a clever and capable girl-inventor to find a makeshift workshop than there are for an overbearing Director to find a clever and capable inventor, but Lena doesn’t yet know that. 

That’s understandable, but there are consequences. Lena modifies the invention against her better judgment. Again, General Searcaster manages to use that invention against her. In this way, Lena loses her hands, which are immediately regrown along with Lena’s power—both her sorcery and her willingness to exert her own authority. 

Lena grieves for her hands, yes, but they’re also an anchor point—with them, she learns to resist the fear of others who have hurt and/or bullied her in the past. Lena’s new hands remind Lena to muster her courage, even in the fact of the Director and General Searcaster.

The next time the Director asks Lena for something, Lena announces that she makes the rules. 

The next time General Searcaster taunts her on a battlefield, Lena declares that she is the weapon. 

Returning to the Rough Story Structure with the New Specifics

So, combining what we learned from adding the specifics through the simple questions exercise with the rough story structure, you can get a pretty clear picture of the rest of Lena’s subplot. 

Again, you’ve moving towards the why. Finding a way to move towards the why in every scene is the same as moving towards a target with your whole body. You eventually get there if you invest enough resources in it. The who and the what remain the same. The when and where is determined by the series’ story arc. With these questions determined, you return to the rough story structure and answer “how” for every scene. 

If you have read the Ever Afters, you’ll see that this doesn’t cover all of Lena’s story. (She has a boy she likes, for example.) I chose to focus on these parts, because it demonstrates how to build a satisfying character arc over a couple books. Though I can’t cover every single decision that went into Lena’s story, I tried to include tools and telling details to give you an idea on how you structure your own. 

But these various tools and techniques can be replaced or modified by whatever works for you. The important part to remember is this: with a good story, one you’re writing or one you’re living, you don’t figure it out all at once.

You figure it out piece by piece. You remember what your original intention was. You re-examine where you’ve already been to find what can be used again, and then you circle around your known puzzle pieces, learning more the longer you spend with them. 

It may feel like you’re going in circles and circles, but eventually you see the entire pattern. 

Eventually, it becomes a story you can tell.