How to Plan Your Spectacular Story! Part 2 Complication, Resolution, Cliffhanger | Narrative Writing

Hi everyone, this is Winnie or Miss Tang. Today we are learning to plan our writing. This is because we want to be prepared to write our narrative. Our success criteria today is to plan an orientation, so the beginning of the story, plan the 3 complications including the conflict and the climax of the story, plan the resolution, the ending, how you're going to resolve the complications, and we are also going to plan a cliffhanger. And we are going to put it all together into a story map, and it's going to look something like this. So a complication is where you come up with a problem or an obstacle for our main character to overcome, and it will disrupt their normal life, so they will feel uncomfortable. And if we find a way to create some suspense and tension during these complications, it will help our audience connect with the characters that we are creating, and it might also help our readers have a guess and anticipate what future actions the characters are going to make. Well, since we have established that Viviana might be a bit jealous of Amber because Amber's cheer coach has encouraged Amber, not Viviana, to go for the cheerleading captain. So Viviana might be really jealous and she might start picking on Amber, maybe in front of other people. Maybe it's something that she hasn't done before. Maybe in the past she's only really picked on Amber, like on, on the sly or like just quietly and no one else has really witnessed it. But maybe she does something where, yeah, she publicly picks on Amber for the first time, which is gonna have consequences because obviously Amber's not gonna be feeling really well. It will probably influence her in the cheer practice, um, because she's gonna feel pretty embarrassed or humiliated. Yeah. So, and which could be good because then, well, not the bullying part, but because we have this obstacle of Viviana in the way, then this could lead Amber to, um, use her her magic ring to make a wish. Okay, on to our second complication. So we're going to increase the tension. We're going to have a look at some conflicts because this will drive our plot forward and it'll keep our readers engaged. We've established that she is previously at cheer practice, so maybe in this section of the story she is leaving cheer practice, and maybe she— when she's leaving cheer practice, she notices that, um, Viviana is picking on someone else. So that leads to Amber needing to, um, help that person. Or maybe she decides that because Viviana's been picking on Amber a lot, she doesn't like that Viviana's picking on someone else. So maybe Amber will step in and stand up for someone else. And then because she's standing up for this other person, that other person could, um, could then become her ally. Does the complication lead to the main character meeting or saving allies along the way? I'm putting down yes because the person who Viviana is picking on, it would be, um, another cheerleader named Elizabeth. And so, um, this leads to Amber standing up for Elizabeth, who will then become her ally. And then we can have Amber make her second wish. And her second wish would be that she wishes Viviana would just leave and never come back. Okay, here we are. So, we are on to the third complication or the climax of the story. This is the most intense moment of your plot because your protagonist will end up confronting the antagonist. So, the hero and the villain will confront each other in a battle of their own. Okay, so previously we talked about how Amber makes that wish that she never— she doesn't want Viviana to ever come back. So, maybe something happens to her, um, that might lead her, I don't know, into a hospital or something. Um, maybe she gets into an accident, she's in the hospital. Uh, at this point, maybe we can have Amber questioning whether her ring is real or not. So she's not— she doesn't really quite believe that the ring is real, but maybe just in case, she'll wish really, really hard. So this is where she'll use that tool that her mentor gave her. She'll use the ring and she'll wish really, really hard that, um, Viviana Viviana is going to be okay. And then we can have the final showdown. So maybe, um, when they're in the hospital and then Viviana and Amber, um, and Elizabeth are there as well. And then maybe in the hospital, even though Viviana's hurt, maybe she, um, loves all this attention that she's getting. But then when it's just Viviana, Amber, and Elizabeth on their own, Viviana might revert back to what, um, how she was behaving before, and she will pick on Amber but this time we will have Amber, um, stand up for herself. So there will be a verbal battle going on. If Amber doesn't stand up to Viviana, well, then she will continue to behave and treat her and others this way. So, um, in this climax, Amber is tired, she's frustrated, and she's ready, more than ready, to stand up for herself. So the battle, how we can describe it is it will be an epic verbal battle. Viviana will make a snide comment which will lead Amber to calling out Viviana's behavior, and Amber will show that she is finally confident with herself. She's brave, she's confident. She, um, she will also finally decide to tell people about what's been happening because that's really important if someone is picking on you or bullying behavior is happening, to make sure that we talk to the people that we trust about the situation. Okay, on to the resolution now. So this is our ending. This is where we are going to wrap up the obstacles, the problems, the complications of the story. And this is also where we get to finalize our themes or the main messages that we've been trying to put out. So our theme that we came up with was bravery and courage. So we've had, we've had Amber stand up to Viviana, and now we're going to wrap it up. In the resolution, we will probably have Amber tell people, um, that she trusts about the situation, and then there'll be, um, events that will happen afterwards. So maybe by telling other people, maybe there are other kids who Viviana has been bullying as well, and they might feel brave enough to speak up. And then of course we will need, um, Viviana to face the consequences of her actions in her behavior. Um, she's not a bad person, but it's just that her behavior, she needs to know that, um, has a negative impact on the other characters. At the beginning, we had Amber who was not confident. So at the end, we'll have her as, uh, brave, has more confidence in herself. And oh, and then we'll also have to resolve the cheer captain position as well. So maybe because she's, um, been really brave standing up for herself, um, and other people, then this could lead her to to, um, being voted as cheer captain. Oh, exciting part! We get to now plan the cliffhanger. So the cliffhanger is something that you can add to the end of your story, or you can end it this way as well, where you can leave a twist or a— some sort of revelation. So a new piece of information comes to light that leaves your readers hanging and wanting more. So this is where we're gonna see what Amber is like as her new role as cheer captain. Um, I thought about the cliffhanger, and I'm thinking that— so obviously we have the cheer competition coming up. Amber is, um, now the cheer captain, but she's going to be late, and she's running late. She's on her way to the cheer competition, and then what we can have is her dad— so they're in the car, they are running late, He is— her dad's really, really proud of her for making it this far. And then he hands her a present. When he hands her a present, he takes the plastic bag that the present was in and just throws it out the window of the car. Now Amber knows that this is wrong, or this is not very good situation because she knows that, um, we shouldn't be littering, but she doesn't say anything. So that could be a hint of what could happen in the future. And then to create suspense and tension at the very end, we could have the plastic bag drift off and then it could even come alive and then it could become a monster and come back to the Bubbleville town. Amber has used her 3 wishes from her mother's ring. She has not realized that the magic is real, but she will soon find out. Out because the plastic pollution monster is going to start heading to a town named Bubbleville. And now we're going to put together our story map. So we can already put in our characters in our settings because we already know who they are. So we've got Amber, Viviana, Rufus, Mrs. Robinson, and Elizabeth. We've got a town named Bubbleville. The— it'll also be set at the school, hospital, and, um, probably at Amber's home as well. The call to adventure Amber's cheer coach encourages Amber to nominate herself as captain. Amber politely declines. And then our foreshadowing that we have going on, Rufus encourages Amber to go for cheer captain and gives her her mother's magic ring, which has 3 wishes. For the first complication, we have Viviana bullies Amber publicly. Amber wishes she knew how to stand up to someone like Viviana. So that's her first wish. Complication number 2, Viviana bullies another girl. No one speaks up except for Amber. and then Amber wishes Viviana would never come back. That's her second wish. Complication number 3, or the climax. Viviana is in hospital. Amber wishes that she is okay. Her third wish. Viviana bullies Amber, but she finally stands up for herself. Yay! Resolution. Amber speaks up. Viviana faces consequences. Amber is voted cheer captain. And with our cliffhanger, we have Rufus hands Amber a present, throws the plastic bag out out of the window, it becomes alive and is now heading towards Bubbleville. And there you have it. So now it is your turn to plan your spectacular story. I have some templates here, and once they are ready, I will pop them in the link of the description below so that you can also use them to plan your story, to plan your orientation, your complications, and also your resolution and your cliffhanger. Up next, um, there'll be a video on how to write the orientation part 1 and how to write the orientation part 2. Can't wait to see you then. See you in my next video. Bye!