James Bond Plotting

At some point between revisions and working on my endless Scapple file for the current novel I took a break with some classic Bond. And I came away with an insight into a different way of looking at how you can construct a novel.

A classic construction method is try-fail arcs. The hero tries something to stop the villain. It doesn't work, and only makes things worse. They try something else. That doesn't work, and the situation is getting critical. Finally, when all looks lost, they try a third thing -- and this time it works.

Another is mystery plotting, and that's essentially what I'm doing on the Athena Fox stories (except many of the clues are cultural; for every time she realizes Steve already knew about the mysterious door, she also has to understand what "mate" means in British circles and why Steve would have opened that door.)

With either of these (and several others as well) you know what has to happen and you search for a good setting to have that happen. Want the hero to get ambushed on his search for clues? How about the good old abandoned warehouse!

James Bond plotting inverts the scheme. Instead, we start with the setting, or the idea, or the gimmick; basically, some exciting set-piece; "I'd like to have a chase scene." Then you backtrack to whatever clue or reversal or other plot lump can happen in that setting.

The movie that really brought this out for me was Moonraker.

James Bond goes to Venice. Why not? I mean, who wouldn't want to go to Venice, given the chance? So the purpose of this is to have some appropriately Venetian shenanigans. Like a fight in a glass factory. And a chase scene in a canal.

In true James Bond plotting, once you've decided on the basics you snowflake it up; what else can we do to make this particularly spectacular? You've already got a high-speed motorized gondola. Why not make it a hovercraft as well?

Oh, but right. Why is this here, why is any of it here? Um...because there is some fancy glass in the Doomsday Device...quick, put a sketch for him to find in a previous scene...and while he is there he can stumble on the next clue to the next set-piece.

I am convinced all the later Star Wars films are done the same way. Let's have a fight on an ice planet, and walking robots. And, hey, all that snow...we could have Luke get attacked by a Space Yeti.

(I know there was actually a different, external reason why the Space Yeti scene was added in.)

This is of course the perfect plotting method for the Athena Fox stories. I'm going to be in Paris? Find a good excuse to visit Moulin Rouge, D'Orsay, and of course la Tour Eiffel. And what would be crazy fun to do in that place? Find something...then find a plot reason to justify it being in the book.