I love doing book dissections. In the past, I’ve always done them with a targeted objective–to see how they balanced dual point of view, dialogue, amount of scenes/chapters, pages per chapter, back story, etc; Having never studied writing at this level before, I used these self-created spreadsheets as my own personal writing curriculum.
As I mentioned on Friday, I have been taking Bob Mayer’s Plot class this month and really enjoying it. I have done so much research in the last nine months that it is mostly serving as a way to assure myself that I understand many of these concepts and it is giving me an entire month to really nail down my outlined plot for my current work in progress. While I think the entire class has been valuable, there is no doubt that I have gotten the most out of his take on the book dissection, as this is the model I will use for all future dissections.
This is how I began. First I chose a book in the same genre as my current work in progress (YA Magical Realism/Historical). As you now know, that was Mandy Hubbard’s Prada and Prejudice. Then I opened a new Excel spreadsheet. My spreadsheet has 3 tabs: Scene Breakdown, Narrative Structure, and Reflection Questions.
**It should be noted again that all of these questions were from Bob’s class. This was one exercise in his month long Plot class, which I highly recommend.
Under the Scene Breakdown tab, I have five columns: Scene, Brief summary of WHAT happens in the scene, Purpose of the scene–WHY the author wrote it, WHAT am I going to write in order to fulfill the WHY in my project, and finally Number of pages.
Now fill this in for your project. For mine, it worked that a scene was basically a chapter so I filled in all the information for each chapter under the correct column.
- Under Summary, I wrote a description of what happened in that chapter. It says brief but you can make this as detailed as you want/need–it is your document!
- Under the next column, I explained why I thought Mandy wrote that scene. This could be because it filled part of the story structure–was the inciting incident, for example–or introduced a subplot, furthered the character arc, etc;
- For the next column, What I’m going to write to fulfill the why in my own project, I was glad to already have a detailed plot outline so I opened my word document and followed along. This was so valuable to me, as it allowed me to see, chapter by chapter, how my story was progressing in comparison. I did adjust some things, noting that I maybe wanted to show something more, or remove a certain chapter/scene that seemed really fun to write but when analyzed did nothing to actually further the plot. Really more than anything, this gave me confidence in seeing that I had created a solid plot outline.
- Pages. I threw the last one in myself as this is something I am always interested in, since I am a fan of writing short chapters (and it appears Mandy is, too!)
This part of the spreadsheet is now complete and it alone is worth it’s weight in gold! But we’re not done yet 🙂 Under the Narrative Structure tab, I answered a series of questions which are listed down Column A and then answered under Column B. If you are following along, here are the questions to add:
- Inciting Incident
- Escalating Conflict
- Crisis
- Climax
- Resolution
- What is the Hook?
- Progressive Complications
- What is the Choice the Protag has to make?
- How is it made?
- How is the main plot resolved?
- How do the subplots support the main plot?
Now go through your Scene Breakdown and answer these questions. If you did your initial analysis correctly, you’ll find that these are actually pretty easy to answer. It is also a great follow up to then answer these questions for your own work in progress if you are working from a detailed outline or from a first draft.
Finally, under the Reflection Questions tab, I have another series of questions and answers, with the questions appearing under Column A and the answers supplied under Column B. These questions are:
- What was the original idea the author started with? You can either try to email the author yourself–which I did!!–or do an Internet search, but you could also guess yourself, which is what I did originally. This is a great exercise, and something you should be able to do with your own work.
- How close is their idea to mine?
- How did the author translate that idea into a story?
- What twist did the author put on the original idea?
- What’s my twist?
- How am I different from this author’s work?
- What is the theme/intent to this story?
- Why did the author begin where he or she did?
- Why did the author choose the perspective he or she did?
- What scope did he or she place on the story?
- What is the pacing of the story?
- How did the author bring the story to a conclusion?
- What did the author do that I liked?
- What did the author do that I didn’t like?
- What didn’t the author put in the book that you might have?
- Why didn’t the author put that in?
- What was in the book that you feel could have been left out?
- How would the story change if it were left out?
- What were the subplots?
- How did they connect with the main plot?
- Did all the subplots get resolved?
- Why did the author pick the settings he or she did?
- How is my book going to be different? What is my unique twist?
Now I won’t answer all of these questions for Prada and Prejudice here on the blog, as that would be crazy long, but I did want to highlight my answers on the Narrative Structure, which is also what I followed up in particular with Mandy on, as well as show additional questions I had for her. So here is my analysis of Prada and Prejudice’s Narrative Structure, along with a quick Q&A with Mandy Hubbard, author of P&P.
Ending Unplanned’s Suggested Narrative Structure for Prada and Prejudice:
- Inciting Incident–The protagonist Callie purchasing the highly expensive but trendy Prada shoes in order to be liked by the antagonist, Angela.
- Escalating Conflict–Callie’s core need, I believe, is to be accepted and fit in, so the conflict lay in continually putting her in situations where she certainly didn’t. This was a time travel historical so having Callie navigate the social customs of the times, having to playing piano in front of a crowd, dancing unknown dances, strange clothes, etc; not only provided a fun look into the past for the reader but majorly contributed to the tension Callie felt.
- Crisis–When Callie realizes Rebecca, the girl she has been pretending to be, arrives in 4 days and the ball is in 3. The huge countdown is on!
- Climax–I saw two possibilities. Callie’s discussion with her new friend/cousin Emily, and the one with the romantic interest Alex. While the one with Alex was important, being that he was the love interest and central to the story–she says repeatedly that he gives her confidence, something she had lacked from page one–I think for the character arc, the more important scene in regards to climax, for me, is her conversation with Emily. She had this great friendship again, something she had been missing for so long, and it gives her the ammunition in the future to look for similar real friendships.
- Resolution–The scene in the hotel room, after Callie has been transported back to present day, with the antagonist Angela, when she tells Callie her Prada shoes are knockoffs. After inwardly fuming for a nanosecond, Callie decides to not even bother telling her the truth–she doesn’t need Angela’s approval and is done with letting her make her feel inferior. Callie decides she doesn’t even want Angela to like her. She could never be the true friend Emily was.
For the question What choice does the Protag have to make, I was kinda stumped. For me, I thought the main plot was her character growth from mousy, insecure girl to confident/comfortable in her own skin teen, which was resolved by deciding she didn’t want to be invisible again at the dance and then the full merging of her character with Rebecca’s at the end before going into the nightclub. So the answer I came up with for the choice she had to make was: Be honest with everyone and risk being kicked out, or continue to pretend to be someone she isn’t?
For subplots supporting the main plot, I identified them as follows: The romance with Alex supports her character growth by challenging her and forcing her to stand up for her beliefs. She also then believes she is worthy of his love and friendship. He makes her feel confident. The time travel supports her character growth by the total contrast of her core need of fitting in and the situation she has been placed in where she definitely doesn’t.
So, Mandy, was I anywhere near right? 🙂
Mandy Hubbard’s Response:
Wow, what a thoughtful analysis! I actually don’t think I could have done it better myself. 😉 I think you nailed it. I think on the climax, its really the culmination of both the Alex/Callie and the Emily/Callie relationships (as opposed to one over the other), and her evolving view of herself through those relationships. My editor and I actually had to work really freakin’ hard to get each story line to climax at the same time. I suppose you could say “The Ball” is the climax, when they all smash into each other.
Follow-up Questions:
- Mandy, did you ever consider using 3rd person POV vs. 1st person?
No, not really. I have always preferred first person, even back to the very first project I ever wrote. The first 7 drafts were in past tense, though, and the 8th draft on (the published version is draft 11ish) were present tense.
- Was it hard narrowing down what aspects of the culture clash to highlight?
Yes! There was so much to work with. There was originally a dinner party in there too, but while it was funny, it didn’t progress the plot. Some things, like the dancing in the barn, were suggested by my editor.
- The first lesson in Bob’s class was discussing the Kernal idea, the main story idea that you started with. What was your initial idea for this story, that grabbed your interest and made you passionate to write it? Did it start with retelling Pride and Prejudice or did it start somewhere else?
The book originally had nothing to do with Pride & Prejudice. I had discovered regency romances about 18 months prior and was totally enamored, but I didn’t want to write something so research intensive. I wanted to experience the time period without having to live inside the head of a 200-year-old teenager. So I settled on time travel.
At the time I called it “How to Snag A Duke. (I know, barf.) My agent hated the title so I brainstormed and came up with Prada & Prejudice. Now, you’ll note that the book you read DID have some Pride & Prejudice parallels. As it turned out, the new title dictated a new direction. Editors asked me to revise and make it more like Pride & Prejudice. At one point I had to scrap the whole book and start over in order to achieve that.
- Did you worry on making sure every bit of the story was realistic and factual for the time period, or did you take some creative liberties? Was this a tough decision?
I didn’t worry in general about the story being 100% realistic—it’s a freakin’ time travel!—but I did stress over the historical accuracies, yes. I bought a few books, researched online, and had another regency author read over the draft. The problem as a writer is that you know you should go look up food so that you can describe it correctly. But you might not realize that as your character walks across the hardwood floors that they should have been carpeted. It’s the small details you don’t think to look up that drove me crazy with worry.
Thank you so much, Mandy! Everyone, make sure you stop back by on Thursday when I do a spotlight review for PRADA AND PREJUDICE!
