Pinch Points - Force of Change

 

Two nights ago, one of my cats alerted me to an interloper in our backyard. I caught a glimpse of this youngster at left. I grabbed my trap and had him within the hour. He's cute and terrified. He went into foster care today with someone who has no other pets and who doesn't have a day job, a book to write, and ill parents to tend. (The past two weeks have been a lot.) This guy - oh, yes. He's male. No doubt about that or the fact that he's intact - made up for some of the stress. He's a teenaged cat at that point where he looks like he's made from mismatched spare parts. His head is too big for his body. His legs are too long and skinny for the rest of him. It makes him adorable and a little comical at the same time. He will be looking for home the southeast region once I have him neutered and vaxxed.

 

On to the business of the blog! This week, you'll be able to divide us into two camps - the plotters and the pantsers - just based on our response to the Pinch Point question. As if you didn't already know.

Pinch Points are a structural device that gives an author an opportunity to bring an antagonist into direct opposition to the protagonist with the sole intent of showing up the protagonist's short comings. If we think about story and character arc forcing a protagonist to change, the pinch point is the place where the protagonist finds out *why* change is necessary: Throughout most of our novels, the protagonist doesn't have the skills to overcome the antagonist. If they did, we'd write mighty short stories. Our heroes need to grow into their roles. They need to become something more in order to best whatever obstacles are arrayed against them. Yet our heroes will fight stepping up at every turn.

Humans are weird animals. You'd think we'd be all about change given that adaptation and flexibility confers evolutionary advantage. If we can't adapt, we die. Yet we have to be dragged kicking and screaming to change. Our characters are no different. They must be forced to change. Pinch Points are one of the ways an author can force a character to transform in some way. 

All of this to say that no. I don't consciously use them, much less plan them. It depends entirely on what a story needs. Some stories are about the inevitable march of a character's choices and actions leading them, step by inexorable step into the climax of the story. There's a Sarah McLachlan song with a line that says "Where every step I took in faith betrayed me." I used that as my plotting device for a couple of books because it interested me - could I have characters who made the absolute right choices in the moment only to have those choices rip them to shreds?

Right now, in the current WIP, Pinch Points fell by accident into my lap. The antagonists have POVs, and in those cases, they do act as catalysts to my protagonists. So I guess those are a kind of Pinch Point? I suspect they are Pinch Points by the letter of the law rather than in the spirit of it. Long way of saying if I have Pinch Points in this book, it's a freaking accident, but after the fact if you ask me, I'll totally claim I meant to do that.

Pinch Points: WTF Are They??

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is: Pinch Points or small turning points. We're asking each other if we plan them, use them as foreshadowing, or just let the story flow?

So, I read KAK's excellent post from yesterday explaining WTF "Pinch Points" are and how she uses them. Spoiler: yes, she plans them out.

Cannot possibly be a spoiler for anyone who knows anything about me: No, I plan them, I might use them? 

YES, I LET THE STORY FLOW.

I swear, I need to start adding topics like "when you're intuitively letting the story flow, how do you.... " Except then I get stuck because there's just not a whole hell of a lot to say about writing intuitively. Yep, here I am, letting things flow. Still flowing. How will it end? I have no idea!

LOL.

Amusingly enough, however, what KAK explained in her detailed analytical post is pretty much the exact scene I wrote yesterday in my current manuscript: ONEIRA.

(If you haven't been following the podcast, ONEIRA is a Totally New Thing - new world, new magic system, unrelated to anything I've written so far. I've been calling it the book I'm not supposed to be writing - it fell on me from out of the sky and insisted on being written - but all of my friends have finally convinced me that clearly I am supposed to be writing it, so I'm trying not to say that anymore.)

It's almost eerie, how the scene I wrote yesterday matches exactly what KAK says the pinch point with the villain is supposed to do. But I didn't plan it at all. In fact, this scene introduced a new POV character and a new plot element, totally unexpected. But this is how I write and how I write this book in particular. It's insisting on doing all sorts of things that I haven't done before and don't expect and I've just surrendered and am going with it. Which actually makes this project really fun, because I'm just letting it be whatever it is and not worrying about reader expectations or where it will fit in the marketplace.

All of this is to say that we all have our own process. My mantra: figure out what your process is and own it. 

KAK loves to geek out on analysis, minutely controlling her stories down to pinches.

My stories just go their own way and I try to cling to the saddle. 

It's all good.

(Except sometimes I end up writing something I'm not supposed to be writing....)

Pinch Points: Villains Being Villainous

This Week's Topic: Pinch Points 

Do I plan them/use them as foreshadowing, or do I just let the story flow?

Hello, skeletal plotter here. Do I plan Pinch Points? Ayup. Why? Let's start with defining Pinch Points in story structure (as opposed to engineering constructs that intentionally cause traffic jams anywhere there is a flow of people or processes). 

Pinch Points are scenes that show the antagonist being an obstacle to the hero's ultimate goal or demonstrating how they are the oppositional entity. A Pinch Point makes the reader feel the horribleness of the antagonistic force before the nefariousness directly affects the hero. That's right, the flexibility with a Pinch Point is the villain doesn't need to abuse the hero or someone hero-adjacent to serve its purpose. The antagonist can absolutely be wretched to their own minion or to a completely unknown person, place, or ideal. A really good Pinch Point will show either the villain's strength that will be used to defeat the hero at the Bleak Moment or the antagonist's weakness that will be used to defeat them in the Final Conflict. Yes, that means strong Pinch Points will foreshadow the pivotal conflicts. 

Example: The king is a despot. He's got an itchy, burning sitch below the waist. The imperial physician tells him he has an STD, but no worries, it's easily treated. What the king hears is that he can't get it up (which the physician never says), so the tyrant beheads the physician on the spot. The king then orders his wife, daughters, and all the palace maids to be executed immediately. The reaction of the courtiers to this behavior is a reflection of privileged sentiment that may or may not align with the hero's perception of the king, but it is important to allude to potential allies or further complications. 

Note: The hero isn't one of the women of the palace, neither are their kith/kin. This moment isn't the cliché of sacrificing female family to motivate the hero. In this example, the king's behavior doesn't directly affect the hero, but it does demonstrate the king's strengths (unquestioned power that will be used to subdue the hero at the Bleak Moment) and the king's weaknesses (there are a lot in that example that can be used to fell the despot in the Final Conflict).

The Pinch Point doesn't have to be complex nor require a large chunk of word count; however, it does need to be a moment that evokes an emotional response from the reader. There's assorted story structure guidance out there that recommends two Pinch Points per story, one around the 30% mark and another at the 75% mark. The Pinch Points come halfway-ish to the Mid-Story Crisis and again halfway between the Mid-Story Crisis and the Final Confrontation. 

Okay, now that we know that Pinch Points are more than engineering Fuck Yous, how do I use them when plotting and in the story? Beyond showing the antagonist flexing their villainy, I use Pinch Points to:

• Remind the reader of the price of the hero's failure
• Prevent the story's pacing from dragging
• Stop me from detouring down a plot-irrelevant tangent

Pinch Points are wonderful structural aspects that can help you, as the author, fight against saggy middles and lost plot threads while enhancing a reader's love-to-hate-the-villian investment in the story.