What do sports brackets have to do with writing a story? Almost everything. A plot depends on conflict and contrast between its characters, and more than that it depends on building interest in them over time. A tournament’s system is exactly about matching opponents together and tracking how that changes–it’s one of the simplest, purest methods there is for managing the variety of a plot while keeping it in terms of what makes it powerful. At the same time, the bracketing concept needs only a few expansions to fit any kind of plotting into it.

(The Unified Writing Field Theory — searchings and findings on what makes stories work)

Simple Brackets: Who’s after Who

So, the basics: brackets in sports are used to match up different opponents meeting and then how the winners from those matchups go on to compete in turn. And the simplest kind of story to use this pattern would involve different characters or groups that were each out to kill the others, ruin them, outdo them in a competition for a vital prize, or otherwise force them out of the plot.

For instance, the story of a cop getting free of an interfering mayor and then facing off with a serial killer might show up as

As the red markings show, each set of three lines is the elements of a scene, such as “the cop and mayor square off, and the cop wins.” (Of course for most stories, the brackets would only be tracking their most pivotal scenes, not the other events that build up between those. But we’ll get to that.)

Then again, this format shows how that the plot looks a bit incomplete compared to what classic tournaments prefer, because the killer has nothing vital to do at first. And sure enough, many stories would also give our hero a mentor, friend, or such who makes his own move on that serial killer and comes to a tragic defeat, leaving the hero to avenge him:

Just by filling out the bracket with someone for the serial killer to beat (or specifically, kill), both sides now go into that final showdown with some dramatic weight–all from just two essential scenes before that. And judging by how crowded fiction is with dead mentors, partners, and so on, it’s hard to argue that setting up a conflict with a previous conflict has fundamental power.

In fact, consider one more aspect of a sports matchup that this plot could use: instead of plotting around two good guys and two bad, what about one changing it to one hero against three villains, say our cop against a genuinely corrupt mayor, a crimelord, and a serial killer, all enemies of each other:

Each plot has its advantages. Using three villains lets you surprise everyone with how the crimelord our hero was hoping to bring in himself gets taken out by a “simple” serial killer. Still, the version that leaves the hero’s ally in the brackets (and the crosshairs) builds sympathy for the hero’s loss, though it doesn’t have the sheer unpredictability of so many competing enemies.

You can fine-tune the story in many more ways just by who goes into which bracket slot, and then playing up expectations around that. Here, since the mayor gets settled first, that probably makes him (and the whole idea of city corruption) look like lesser problems compared to the crimelord who’s probably pulling their strings… and a fun twist when that manipulator’s beaten by a more ruthless killer. Or a different version could have the crimelord outwit that killer, or swap positions so a seemingly cowardly mayor kills that killer and emerges as the greater threat; they all make different statements. (Let alone if one of the villains wins at the end, of course.)

 

Survivors and Allies

Of course most stories leave more than just its climactic character standing at the end. So let’s consider how (just as many tournaments allow someone more than one loss before they leave), a “story bracket” ought to allow enemies to run their testing attacks and failed schemes before they’re finally eliminated–

Or sometimes not eliminated, or not even trying to wipe someone out. For instance, suppose instead of our gangster being murdered he survives and joins forces with the cop to trap the killer:

In fact, maybe the killer has tried to attack the mayor first, and that failed attempt is what leaves him in need of the crimelord’s help, before that went bad:

By this time the killer starts to look like a wounded animal, beaten by one side and driven to try to work with another, and the blowup of that drives his ex-partner to the cop; while in contrast that cop has been able to bring down the mayor completely and now makes an alliance with the crimelord work too. Letting people interact in new ways can build up whole new kinds of interest… though allowing someone to go through more and more steps without anyone being eliminated does dilute some of the energy of a single-elimination “tournament.”

Also, let’s think again about which sides are in use, and what kind of balance they form between them. Using that mayor alongside the two out-and-out criminals gives the story a wider scope, while replacing him with a third official crook would put more focus on the underworld. Or if the mayor were replaced by a simple thief but the crimelord by a competing cop, someone just with different methods from the hero, the same pattern takes on new meaning: it’s easier to believe the second cop, after failing to nab the killer, would join up with someone who’s now only a professional rival.

Or some slots in the brackets might go to whole other issues, subplots or emotional challenges compared to the practical ones that are usually (not always) the spine of the story. If the cop’s also trying to make time for his sick sister, that’s a fine contrast with everything else–especially the times one plot interferes with (or ends up helping with) the other.

Just how different to make each point from the others is its own challenge; do you want tighter conflicts about just the things that come out in one crime, or a wider net of things coming together? But these are what open up when enemies and rivals are given enough ways to interact.

 

Steps on the Way

We’ve been charting the main times the major characters cross paths, and how that adds presence to those people. Between those, there will probably be smaller actions that move the story toward the next main one: working toward that goal, or failed shortcuts to it or to something else. Our cop will probably work through a series of clues and dead ends, while his enemies send throwaway thugs and attacks to get rid of him before the real move’s made. Since this is finer detail, it might be better to chart these additions with only something like:

Part of these steps might be lesser characters, or even things, that affect these only now and then. Our cop’s partners or criminal’s minions can be almost background for a number of scenes, then step out to make a difference–or just get changed by something else (killed? rescued?) to show that thing’s importance. Even someone’s car becomes important the more it’s mentioned, especially if there’s a fun scene where he first got it or he had to do without it, and the result may be that it goes off a cliff and we feel the loss.

Or some of those characters might have only a few scenes, maybe just one to establish them and another when they cross the path of something more important and make their point.

And finally there might be one-scene characters who barely count, like the shopkeeper the crimelord bullies. These don’t connect to other scenes and are barely more than tools for that one moment, except that they also cover what need the story has to get something like a bullied shopkeeper into the overall mix.

 

More than anything else, a story may get its basic energy from its characters and how they interact–who crosses whose path and which ends up removed, or else changed or helped, and what interactions come after that in turn. It’s all about keeping track of the momentum.

So, why not plan out a book like a bookie?

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