In the first post of this series, I talked about how I get to know my characters as I write, not through a bunch of exercises from before I write the book.

Last week, I talked about four filters you can use to understand and manipulate your characters’ motivations.

Today, we’re going to talk about what the decision-making process looks like once a choice comes along using a tool I’m calling the decision circle. (I’ve adapted this tool from one that I learned at church called the Kairos circle. This is a hazard of being a fiction writer. There’s often a temptation to apply good teaching to my characters rather than my own life.)

First, the moment of choice arises. A fork appears in the road and your character must decide what to do now. Or, the character can realize that a choice is coming and be slowly processing what to do over the course of multiple chapters.

Whatever choice they make, the trajectory of your character’s path will be impacted. “No change” isn’t an option. Here’s a quick overview of the internal and external path they can take as they make this decision, and then I’ll cover options for playing with this process.

1. Notice: The character notices the need to make a decision.
2. Reflect: The character considers what happened and what to do next. They might ask questions like, “How does this make me feel? Has something like this happened to me before?” (This is where some of those filters we talked about last week will pop up!)
3. Discuss: Next, your character discusses the situation with others and receives their feedback.
4. Plan: Either during that discussion or privately on their own, the character considers different options for moving forward.
5. Gather: If your character needs others to be involved, they ask them. (Sometimes this is combined with plan)
6. Act: They do the thing, and their path veers in a new direction.

Most of us tend to be better at one half of the circle than the other. I’m really good at the first half of the circle, the internal half. I will really stew on something and think about it and journal about it, but it’s hard for me to move toward action. Others jump straight to action without really thinking things through. Your character will also naturally gravitate toward one half of the circle. They’ll also frequently skip steps, or you’ll make choices as the author that not every step needs to be shown. This is a framework, not a formula.

How do you know when to show all the steps and when to skip around? I think a good guideline is this: The degree to which the decision impacts your character’s trajectory should indicate how detailed you are in showing each phase of the circle. Meaning that readers don’t need you to show the full decision circle when a character is picking a restaurant, but we probably need a full decision circle if they’re deciding to stage a coup.

Let’s run through the decision circle with several kinds of characters.

Piper from The Lost Girl of Astor Street is a very proactive character to write. Her best friend is missing, and she has an idea of where in town she might be able to find answers. (Notice.) She makes a plan to ditch school, but since it’s a little dangerous, she feels like someone should know. So she calls Mariano (gather) and then she acts. Piper skips right over reflecting and discussing.

But Taichi from Within These Lines likes to linger on that internal side of the circle. It takes some work to push him to the external side, but he can do it if the stakes are high enough. An example of that is when evacuation orders have come in for Japanese Americans and he’s learned he’ll be leaving town Tuesday. He sits with the grown-ups while they talk about this (notice) then he goes to be with his sister, Aiko, while he processes his own thoughts. (Reflect.) They verbally process together (discuss) and Taichi realizes he should go tell Evalina in person. They talk about how that could happen (plan) and Aiko says she’ll cover for him. (Gather) Then he leaves to go tell Evalina (Act.)

These kinds of decisions are what push stories forward and make individual scenes interesting. So, how does a tool like the decision circle fit within a scene?

I’ll summarize below, but if you’d like a more detailed explanation of scene structure, you can learn more about that here:

How To Craft High Impact Scenes For Your Stories Part One

Briefly, writers often refer to “scene and sequel structure,” meaning you have the action components of scenes, but you also want to provide space for your character to process what happened to them. Traditional scene structure looks like this:

Goal/Expectation: What your character wants at the start of the scene

Conflict/Obstacle: What keeps them from achieving this easily

Disaster: (or a “yes, but”) Goal can’t be achieved OR is achieved but leads to a different problem

And then traditional sequel structure looks like this:

Reaction: Your character responds (shock, fear, tears, disbelief)

Dilemma: They survey options

Decision: They make a choice

The decision circle tool fits in the sequel structure.

Your character is pursuing their scene goal (or story goal) when an obstacle arises and they need to make a choice. So they work their way around the circle, perfectly or imperfectly. If they’re making a more thought-out decision, you’ll want to include more of these steps. If you want to show a bad decision, one way to do that is have other characters point out steps the POV character is missing. (“Shouldn’t we discuss this more?” Or, “Should we include so-and-so in this plan?”) And then they come out the other side of the loop with a decision made and a resulting new scene goal that they’re pursuing.

One key to creating page-turning stories is to give your characters interesting obstacles and dilemmas, then keep the stakes high enough that they keep having to make challenging decisions.

Do your characters tend to be quick or slow to act?

Stephanie Morrill writes books about girls who are on an adventure to discover their unique place in the world. She is the author of several contemporary young adult series, as well as two historical young adult novels, The Lost Girl of Astor Street and Within These Lines. Within These Lines was a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection, as well as a YALSA 2020 Best Fiction for Young Adults pick. Since 2010, Stephanie has been encouraging the next generation of writers at her website, GoTeenWriters.com, which has been on the Writer’s Digest Best Websites for Writers list since 2017. She lives in the Kansas City area, where she loves plotting big and small adventures to enjoy with her husband and three children. You can connect with Stephanie and learn more about her books at StephanieMorrill.com, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.