Okay! it’s time for the seventh part of our series about K.M. Weiland’s theme template. And I think we have an amazing story in our hands.

Let’s make a quick recap of the things we have so far!

We have a protagonist, who is a selfless and skillful person. A war orphan who becomes a killing machine, a person who has learned to gain new abilities fast to survive. Because of exemplary achievements during the war, he’s awarded higher education and chooses a medical career as he feels guilty for killing so many people. Yet, something strange happens, he gains fame for being “coldhearted” as he approaches cases with a clear mindset, “if a person is beyond saving it’s better not to attempt a procedure“ is his motto, which expresses the lie he believes, that in hope there’s only pain and death.

Our doctor protagonist gets accused of letting a patient die in the operating room. Worst, this patient is actually one of the enemy soldiers that brutally murder his family in the past. Yet, he doesn’t go to a regular prison, he goes into a prison town where he and other prisoners have to participate in a series of almost unsolvable puzzles, in order to earn food for their families. Failing a puzzle means death, but a participant has the opportunity to choose a family member to die for them, this will keep them in the game.

The winner of this prison challenge can opt to become the new warden of the prison town and can even choose to free all of the participants. But, our antagonist, the warden of the town, is a former prisoner and a stone-cold killer who feels the need to punish criminals and who’s comfortable with his power position.

The people in charge of choosing which prisoners go to prison town don’t have the information about our protagonist being a former soldier. They only know that he’s a coldhearted doctor who left a patient to die.

Now, we also stablished the way in which the unsolvable puzzles run.

A network of courses of actions (or ways to achieve a specific result), but they’re placed in a way that’s confusing and dazing and can only be surpassed using high military skills and/or gaining a new ability really fast, while being coldhearted.

And we said that “being coldhearted” means that one has to pass on the initial impulsive feeling of doing something and wait, analyze and reflect, in doing so you find patterns that weren’t initially available.

Okay! So, in our last session, our protagonist proves his worth by analyzing the problem in front of him. A puzzle in which prisoners have to escape a maze using strange collars with decreasing numbers on them. As the familiar waiting on the other side of the maze rants against him, thinking our protagonist has left them to die, he figures out the puzzle and runs towards the exit, saving not only his life and his familiar one, but everyone else still alive inside the maze.

This time, we’ll discover how the antagonistic forces respond to this incredible act of skills and guts, as our protagonist immerses himself fully into our plot.

Now, as we said in our previous session, the antagonist’s objective for this first challenge was to kickstart the reality TV show. For that to happen, they needed a great number of deaths inside the maze. But our protagonist prevented this to happen by solving the riddle inside.

While taking the decision to solve the puzzle and win the first challenge, what our protagonist actually did was to make the decision to go ahead in facing the dilemma presented to him, effectively starting the plot and the series of events which will lead to an inevitable resolution. His first win also represents the end of act one, as our character prepares to immerse himself fully into the conflict.

So, where to go from here?

According to K.M. Weiland’s theme template, we’re now entering the second act of our story. This time, we have to design the next step in our journey; “an aspect of the truth acting as an antidote to the specific lie, a moment of truth“.

As we came into our story, especially thinking about our setting, we have been surrounded by a powerful idea, that having hopes of surviving the prison town’s reality TV show leads prisoners to suffer and die while facing the sadistic challenges presented to them. In a previous session we also included the idea that the warden is completely against letting anyone win, because doing so would mean him loosing the power position he holds.

Let’s explore this idea, let’s say that prisoners, especially senior ones, already know that is impossible to win. Yet, they fail or don’t care to convince new members that is better to just survive, rather than to attempt to win. These senior prisoners have also become extremely efficient at surviving, they don’t care about winning, and they may even use newcomers to gain precious insight as to how to stay alive.

As such, we have two kinds of prisoners:

• Newcomers.
• Senior prisoners.

Now, our protagonist’s heroic feat has to have shaken more than one of these senior prisoners cages, right? Why is this so important? because one of them can become a powerful ally, a mentor even. Why is this so important? Remember our truth:

• Hope gives people a reason to live.

Our protagonist still doesn’t have any hope for him, but his amazing victory has sent ripples of hope across the prison town. Families have started talking again, conversations now include a key element; there’s a possibility of winning this thing.

And what is that in a nutshell? Hope!

And what about our protagonist, what happened to him after winning?

As our current step indicates, this is the moment in which he makes the decision to fully immerse into the conflict, and as a result, he also fully immerses in his inner conflict between lie and truth:

• Truth; If generally “Hope gives people a reason to live”, then specifically, “Hope can help you survive and be free from injustice”.

• Lie; If generally “Hope makes people suffer and waste their lives”, then specifically, “Hope can make you suffer and get you killed”.

So, let’s say that, after his victory, prison guards take our protagonist backstage. Not for a congratulation party, but to beat him up for ruining the first episode of the TV show. And you know what else, after the beating he gets to meet the prison warden, who’s eager to face the man who made a mockery of his plans. As the two characters meet, a shocking revelation transpires. The warden is no other than the senior military officer that ordered the killing of our protagonist’s family. Let’s make it worst, he was the one who first pulled the trigger. And even worst than that, he enjoyed it.

As the warden interrogates our protagonist, trying to understand how a simple physician was able to decipher and win the first challenge, our protagonist makes the utmost effort to keep his emotions hidden, inside he’s bursting with anger and murderous intent, but outside he remains calm. He doesn’t stop gathering information, doesn’t stop searching, grinding for an opportunity. Because of this, the warden makes his first mistake, he underestimates our protagonist’s capabilities, effectively letting him go after checking that the whole thing was just a stroke of luck.

The guards bring our protagonist, all beaten up, back to his house in prison town for all to see. Prisoners and families, both newcomers and senior ones, have had the day to taste the sweet nectar of hope. But, watching their new hero in this shape, how many of them will be strong enough to keep it?

Guess we’ll have to wait for the next time to know! One thing is certain, our protagonist has not given up, in fact, he now has a powerful reason to face the challenge ahead, the possibility of vengeance.

And with that idea, we end this chapter of our journey through K.M. Weiland’s theme template. Next time, we’ll be facing the first part of the second act, the trials phase, where our protagonist will gain a growing awareness of the truth. Until that time comes, good luck in writing!

And so… here we are. And don’t be surprise by the ominous feeling we’re getting here, cause this time we’re diving deep into character development, probably the most painful and self reflecting part of the writing journey. Yes, it’s time to tackle the personal aspect of our story, about our protagonist and by consequence, of any other character in our roster.

It is time to talk about the Ghost/Wound.

But before going to crazytown, let’s make a quick recap of all the progress we’ve made so far, shall we?

First, we have our:

Big truth and character-specific truth:

If generally “Hope gives people a reason to live”, then specifically, “Hope can help you survive and be free from injustice”.

And…

Big lie and character-specific lie:

If generally “Hope makes people suffer and waste their lives”, then specifically, “Hope can make you suffer and get you killed”.

Then, we chose “escape from prison” as the thing the character wants, and, “to understand that his actions not only reignited hope inside him but also gave hope to others, shifting the balance of injustice inside prison” as the thing the character needs.

Now, to understand how a proper Ghost/Wound works, and by that I mean it works for our story, we have to think for a moment about the thing the character needs. If we have a character that has to learn that “his actions can reignite hope for him and also give hope to others” we’re also talking about a character that has lost hope in the first place, but also, a character that can inspire others.

Taking these two ideas we can say that our character has something special about him, something that can inspire others, but it seems that they can’t see this at the start point, given that they have to learn this truth as part of the story objective. So, let’s ask ourselves, which type of character has no hope because they can’t see who they really are. Maybe this character can accomplish amazing feats but fails to see value in himself, so much that they need to be put in a catastrophic situation to learn their true value.

Here’s where the Ghost makes its appearance.

Let’s define this value first, right? so we can talk about the same thing moving forward.

The Ghost is a motivating event in your character’s past that represents the moment and reason the lie first took root in their life. The lie you say?

Hope can make you suffer and get you killed.

What we’re saying here is that something happened in the character’s past that makes them believe that experiencing hope is a dangerous thing, so much that in having hope they think suffering and death are inevitable.

Let’s say that, as a young boy, the protagonist lived in a war zone, where his mother takes the hopeful decision to stay at home, while all the other families fled because she had the hope that her husband would return to them as promised and couldn’t leave him behind, because of hope. And so, father never arrived, by enemy soldiers did, effectively killing her and the protagonist’s sisters.

From this point forward, our protagonist holds the belief that experiencing hope will inevitably lead to suffering and to the possibility of being killed.

Now, this Ghost from our protagonist’s past has produced a Wound on him, and wounds need to heal. Before you go on asking how can a wound heal, and I tell you right now, the answer is right there in the proposition, let’s talk a bit about it.

So, What’s this Wound thing exactly?

A wound is an aftermath of experiencing the ghost, it is often expressed through some fear that the character tries to avoid at all cost. Because of the traumatic nature of this experience, the wound acts like a defensive mechanism that prevents the character from being hurt again, but it also prevents them to overcome the experience and have a better life, beyond fear.

It is expressed as a personality trait (or a group of them) that protects the character from being harmed and maintains some control over their experience. At the same time, the wound makes the character see reality from a distorted point of view that prevents them from seeing the truth.

In our protagonist’s case, the wound of having lost their family over hope, their belief that experiencing it can lead to suffering and death, can be summarized in “fear of change“. What do I mean by that, I mean that the character will prefer to accept things as they come, building a comfortable and protected life, free of risk or gamble, to actually avoid the need of experiencing hope for better things. As long as the character stays “imprisoned” in his own lack of hope, they will at least not experience any suffering and will avoid death.

Now, what type of character traits can encompass a character that’s experiencing fear of change?

• They will choose to not get involved emotionally.
• They will not have an opinion on things that can cause backlash.
• They will prefer enclosure.
• They will not be as open as to trust others.
• Etc.

Are you getting the idea? Okay, as you can see, a ghost from the past produces a wound that the character needs to overcome to have a proper life. Until then, they will keep suffering on their own accord, which summing up an external conflict and goals to achieve can make up a real recipe for disaster.

But, do not despair yet, because not everything is lost for our protagonist. Remember that at one point we talked about something special about the character? because the truth is that our protagonist can inspire others, to give them hope at the same time they discover it for themselves.

Now we’re talking about the Basic Action, which is also thought about as the “character’s weapon“, an ability or set of personality traits that have a positive impact and that can help them achieve their goal towards the truth.

And you know what’s the most incredible part of this Basic Action/Weapon?

Most of the time, the protagonist has it but, because of the Ghost/Wound/Lie situation, they can’t see it in themselves. That’s why they need to go through the ordeal that the story proposes, to understand their true value, to change the perception they have about themselves.

In our case, what could be the Basic Action of our protagonist?

Maybe this lack of hope leads them to be selfless, maybe even brave or painfully honest. Maybe lack of hope gives them a clear perspective on human affairs, the information they could use to achieve things. Maybe a life without hope has to lead them to be skillful not to rely on others.

To keep our story going, let’s say our protagonist is a skillful and selfless person, who has fear of change and so prefers not to attempt to change the destiny of things.

And that’s it for today! Next time we’ll use all of the information we have so far to start building our plot.

Until then, good luck in writing!