INSIDE THE ART, CRAFT AND BUSINESS OF WRITING for Film, TV, Books, Stage, Print or Digital Media (with Particular Attention to Comedy)
In case you’re not familiar with Vonnegut’s Axis, it’s a brilliant tool for analyzing stories that have already been written (see Vonnegut’s brilliant exegesis here), but I’ve just found a great way to use it to develop characters during the writing process.
Essentially, the Axis works like this:
G-I Axis (vertical) – Good fortune (wealth, boisterous good health) is up and Ill fortune (sickness, poverty) is down.
B-E (horizontal, left to right) is Beginning to End.
I was using it as a way of mapping out a story I’m developing and I realized that my two protagonists have two different story models! One is living a (Boy) gets (Girl) story – in this case ‘Doctor finds Cure’ – and the other is a Cinderella story (Things are bad and getting worse and he needs saving!).
A good reminder that each of your characters might be living a different story – and a great way of mapping when they’re in similar or different frames of mind.
Just like real life. I’m living a different story than both of my children. And they’re living a different story from each other.