Story Aspects/ journies & stakes

Writing is about telling a compelling story. You know that you need:

A compelling protagonist, stakes, the protagonist’s road to change, and a final resolution.

“Call me Ishmael,” of course, is the famous opening line of the book’s narrator and co-protagonist.

In the beginning, Ishmael says he goes to sea when depressed [It is a way I have of driving off the spleen (depression)…whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul…]

Ishmael’s stakes begin with an escape from his depression, they end with a struggle simply to survive, evolving from suicidal thoughts to a literal battle for his life against nature and Ahab’s obsession.

While much of Moby Dick takes place on Ahab’s whaler, Pequod: “She was a ship of the old school, rather small if anything; with an old fashioned claw-footed look about her. Long seasoned and weather-stained in the typhoons and calms of all four oceans…,” in his 2008 Master’s thesis Khalid Easa suggests that “Ishmael’s journey… is  a  metaphoric voyage for understanding [and] a departure from preconceived beliefs that Ishmael  [questions… [and where] the hunt for whales transforms into a hunt for knowledge.”

In the resolution, Ishmael survives Ahab’s and the Pequod’s destruction to tell the story of his journey.

In more recognizable stories:

In Samwise Gamgee’s journey in the Lord of the Rings he goes from a simple gardener and friend of Frodo into a courageous Ring-bearer, supporting Frodo through difficult parts of the journey, and “a savior of Middle-earth,” balancing loyalty with strength and self-reliance.

And, of course, Harry Potter’s stakes in his journey to become an accomplished wizard expand from personal safety to the fundamental threat of Voldemort.

The stakes for Robert Langdon in The Davinci Code are to avoid arrest and prosecution for a murder while also protecting the secret of the (real) Holy Grail.

In my short story “The Substitute Psycopomp,” the stand-in while Heaven’s Gatekeeper is on vacation hopes to prove himself, with the stakes for failure being sorted out for Hell himself.