What Kindergarten Got (And Still Gets) Really, Really Wrong, Part Two
By Lisa Cron | June 12, 2014 |
photo by kissabug
Last month we talked about the trap that unsuspecting writers are encouraged to walk right into, nay wholeheartedly embrace, from Kindergarten on. And that is: to come up with a “premise” that is out of the ordinary – think: Jane woke up one morning to discover she’s an alien – and then begin writing a story to see what happens.
And hey, that is pretty dramatic, right? Lots of things might happen. So many things that instead of being liberating, it’s paralyzing. Especially since neutral “what ifs” like this lack the elements that every compelling story needs. For instance, conflict. Where’s the specific problem? What will Jane have to struggle with? What difference will it make to her? What hard choice will it force her to make? What’s the point? We have no clue. Jane being an alien is just something decidedly odd, and ultimately, totally random. Read: meaningless.
And here’s the harder-to-see, and even more deceptively damaging fact: it’s an utterly surface problem. It’s just a [pullquote]Stories aren’t about the things that happen in them — the plot; stories are about what those things force the protagonist to struggle with, and what they force her to overcome internally in the process.[/pullquote]plot, not a story.
Point being: stories aren’t about the things that happen in them, that is, the plot; stories are about what those things force the protagonist to struggle with, and what they force her to overcome internally in the process. These are things that pre-date the plot. By a long shot. They are also things that the plot itself is then constructed to force the protagonist to deal with – often kicking and screaming.
Story is internal, not external — which is one of the many reasons why stories that only focus on external events (the plot) never work, and why starting with story structure books — from the Hero’s Journey on – will always lead you astray. Why? Because they focus first and foremost on the plot – certain external things that have to happen by page so-and-so. The truth is, story structure is born of a story well told. Tell your story well and the very structure they’re suggesting will be there. Can you then use story structure models to tweak it? Sure — why not! But if you focus on the structure first (again, the plot), all you’ll have is a bunch of things that happen.
But what about those poor unsuspecting elementary school kids in New Jersey?
Sheesh, I have to admit, even having a story structure model would have helped. Because the story prompts they were given to write from didn’t suggest any story or any structure whatsoever. In fact, they didn’t suggest anything other than the reaction: Wow, that’s weird! Think magic lamps, castles appearing out of thin air, space ships landing and finding a big box on your desk, opening it and inside is . . . you get the picture.
So with state mandated tests looming, the question was: how could the kids take a sucky problem-less prompt and insert a problem, so they have something to actually write about? And, even better, how could they walk into the test knowing the heart of the story they’d write, even though they wouldn’t know what the actual prompt was until they got it?
This sounds like an impossible dilemma, doesn’t it? I mean, how could you pick a specific problem with absolutely no idea what the prompt might be – especially given how outlandish so many of the prompts are? I’m here to say that it’s entirely possible, and it’s something that can help us adult writers, too, especially since it’s damn hard to unlearn something you’ve inadvertently internalized since you were five. Plus, it highlights what a story actually is, and offers a simple strategy for pinning down your story before you leap into your plot.
Here’s what we told the kids . . .
The first thing to do is to decide what point you want your story to make, because the point will tell you exactly what kind of problem your story will be about. For instance, here’s an example of several simple points:
- Friends stick together when times are tough.
- Believe in yourself even when others don’t.
- Think about how others will feel before you act.
All these points suggest a very specific problem. To wit:
- A group of friends will struggle with a tough problem that will make them not want to stick together (hello, [pullquote]The abstract, the general, the conceptual, is the enemy of story and the very thing that paralyzes writers.[/pullquote]conflict!), but they’ll ultimately realize the benefit of sticking together in order to solve the problem.
- A character will want to do something hard, but have to face a bunch of people who don’t think she can do it, and will struggle to muster the inner strength to believe in herself and do it anyway.
- A character will really want to do something that might hurt someone else, and have to struggle with whether or not to do it.
Problems galore! Conflict all over the place! The chance to learn and grow, present and accounted for! In other words, the seeds of story. But, they’re still kind of abstract – that is, general – and abstract is the enemy of story and the very thing that paralyzes writers. The trick is to move from your abstract point to a concrete and specific example.
And then we gave them an example . . .
In order to help the kids learn how to do this, we presented a step-by-step example. First, we picked the point: Think about how others will feel before you act. And then we unleashed the prompt on them. Heartbreakingly, this is an actual 3rd grade prompt from the 2011 New Jersey ASK mandated annual statewide test:
- One afternoon, Jay was helping his mother plant vegetables in the garden when he saw something move in the bushes. He turned to see what had caught his attention and was surprised to see . . . write a story about it.
Ouch, talk about bland! There is no problem, and thus no struggle, no solution, no point. It’s just something unusual that happened. Big deal. Here’s the kind of “writing” this type of prompt had prompted in the past:
Jay was in the garden helping his mom plant vegetables. He saw something move in the bushes near him. It was a sparrow, it chased a worm that tried to wriggle away like a pink baby hamster burrowing into wood shavings. But the bird caught it, and swirled it down its throat like my brother eating spaghetti. Then the sparrow leapt into the air, its wide wings glistening in the sunlight as it took flight. (BTW, pretty writing and use of “figurative language” are taught. And valued far above story content. Kinda like most MFA programs.)
So anyway, back to the lesson . . .
Given our point (think how others will feel before you act), we already know that Jay, who is the main character, would [pullquote]The plot begins to rise and take shape based on the protagonist’s internal struggle.[/pullquote]probably be considering doing something that might upset someone else.
Who might he upset? That’s easy: his mom, since she’s part of the prompt. Then it was time to do a bit of pre-writing, to nail down the specifics of the story. The first question was: What will the plot-problem actually be?
It probably has to do with that thing rustling in the bushes. What if it’s a snake (a garter snake, but still), and the problem is Jay’s mom is utterly, totally terrified of snakes. Now, keep in mind that we still don’t have the actual story-problem yet, but we’re getting there. What this gives us is the external plot-problem: There’s a snake in the garden, and Jay’s mom is in harm’s way. What should Jay do?
Great! Now, what’s Jay’s inner struggle; that is the story-problem? He looks at the snake and he knows it’s harmless, so wouldn’t it be funny if he played a trick on his mom? Like, say, picking it up and scaring her with it? Sure she’d scream, but it’s not like she’d get hurt or anything. (Note: see how the plot begins to bloom out of Jay’s internal struggle?)
Okay, that’s one side of the struggle, what’s the other?
Why wouldn’t Jay want to scare his mom? At that point one eager little boy who couldn’t wait to be called on, yelled, [pullquote]Unless we know Jay’s specific backstory, how can we know how he will react to anything, or what specific memories he’ll use in order to decode the present, and decide what to do? We won’t![/pullquote]“Because he loves her!” Indeed.
But . . . Jay decides to scare her anyway. He bends down and goes into the bushes, but it’s dark in there, and he feels a kind of scared. He remembers that when he was a little kid, he told his mom he was afraid of the dark. And did she hide in his closet, then just as he was falling asleep, leap out and yell “BOO!”? No! She gave him a nightlight, and he’s been okay ever since. (Ah yes, unless we know Jay’s specific backstory, how can we know how he will react to anything, or what specific memories he’ll use in order to decode the present, and decide what to do? We won’t!)
So Jay decides not to scare her. Why?
Because he knows how bad he would have felt if she’d done that to him, and he doesn’t want to make her feel that way. But there’s still the problem of the snake. And the way the bushes are rustling, it sounds as if it’s heading straight for his mom.
His solution? He yells, “Mom, is that your phone ringing? I think you left it in the kitchen again.” And when she goes to get the phone, he quickly picks up the snake and tosses it over the fence. The end!
The kids loved it. We’d taken a bland, story-less “thing that happened” and turned it into a compelling story.
And here’s the best thing that happened. Right after that we had them try it. First they picked a point, and then we gave them a prompt. A real stinker. The amazing thing was that as we looked out over the classroom, rather than seeing the usual sea of panicking kids, just about all of them were bent over their desks, busy writing.
To recap, here’s the takeaway for us big kids who are not hurriedly scribbling stories based on sucky third-grade test prompts:
1.) Know your story’s point from the get-go.[pullquote]Story is about an internal change in the protagonist, that then causes an external change in the plot.[/pullquote]
2.) Devise a specific situation that will force a specific character to have a specific internal struggle.
3.) Know the specific backstory that will steer the character’s internal struggle, providing the yardstick by which she will gauge the meaning of what happens, driving her action.
4.) Devise a plot to put that character’s inner struggle to the test.
5.) Resolve the plot problem based on what the situation has compelled the character to learn, internally.
The biggest takeaway of all is this: Story is about an internal change in the protagonist, that then causes an external change in the plot. First comes the story, next comes the plot, and and — and only then — the beautiful writing. That’s when the story actually can leap into the air, its wide wings glistening in the sunlight, and take flight.
Lisa Cron is the author of Wired for Story: The Writer’s Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers From the Very First Sentence and Story Genius: How To Use Brain Science to Go Beyond Outlining and Write a Riveting Novel (Before You Waste 3 Years Writing 327 Pages That Go Nowhere). Her video tutorial, Writing Fundamentals: The Craft of Story, can be found at Lynda.com. Her TEDx talk, Wired for Story, opened Furman University’s 2014 TEDx conference, Stories: The Common Thread of Our Humanity. A frequent speaker at writers conferences, schools and universities, Lisa’s passion has always been story. She currently works as a story coach helping writers, nonprofits, educators and journalists wrangle the story they’re telling onto the page; contact her here.
It’s a bit like asking the auto designer and the engineer who has the more important job. When it comes to inspiring kids (and adults), I’ll agree with you. Story, conflict, and character come first. This excites the creativity neurons. Whereas beginning with structure will only excite a short nap. However, structure cannot be ignored. Even for those who don’t outline, they must understand its existence and purpose. For the elementary-age kids, they can run without it. But for those who develop a stronger interest in the craft, getting them right into the “engineering” will save them a lot of frustration down the road.
I hear you! But to be clear, I’m not suggesting that structure be ignored, but that story structure is the byproduct of a story well told. Learn to tell a story well, and it will be there. That’s where structure came from in the first place. When it comes to then fine tuning the story, absolutely, focus on structure. In that, I think we’re saying the same thing! ;-)
It’s not just third grade prompts. I see this in movies all the time, especially action-adventure films. All kinds of bad stuff happens to the MC, but the viewer is given no reason to care about the MC. Oh yeah, he’s Tom Cruise. So what? I am going to write, Stories are internal, on a post-it and pin it to my computer screen. Lesson learned. I’ve always fundamentally believed that stories are character-driven. Plot is the byproduct. Thanks for this insightful post, Lisa. The young students in New Jersey are in good hands.
Thanks, CG, and boy, I couldn’t agree more about movies!
Lisa-
The problem with the way imaginative (fiction) writing is taught I think is that the true nature of story is little understood. This is so in kindergarten, as you found, and all the way through the world of MFA programs and genre professionals.
It is time for a revolution in the teaching of writing. MFA students should rebel. Why pay for an advanced degree and then go unpublished, or at best little read? Commercial writers too ought to demand higher levels of craft, or at least seek them out. Lack of that is the root of their frustrations.
Maybe start here? Today? Thanks, Lisa.
And I might add, anyone who wants to learn how to be a fiction writer should read Lisa Cron’s and Donald Maass’s books. Highly recommended!
Wow, what a post! I’ve read it twice, just to absorb the detail, and will print for reference. Thanks for getting my brain working this morning, Lisa!
Denise Willson
Author of A Keeper’s Truth and GOT
Hi Lisa,
In my upbringing, very little was taught about how to write a story. The emphasis was on the story we had to write for the class. I fully blame this ambiguity for why my story was seven times as long as what was called for and three weeks late (as a consolation, the school principal liked my first story so much she typed it up and read it to the class in the library).
Here I am now, far away from that third grade predicament and I have little from my education to help. Instead, I’ve had to learn from doing (the best way, in my opinion).
You make a good point, though, that the structure of story and other innards one must not neglect, present themselves whether a writer is aware of them or not. In the first two manuscripts I wrote, something was lacking, but I couldn’t see what. It wasn’t until I read several craft books and took a few workshops that I was able to recognize I had no central problem. I’d simply started at the beginning and wandered through, letting the story present itself to me.
I wholeheartedly agree with you, though, about a writer needing to connect with the elements of the plot early on. The technique I use now has developed as an anti-disaster means, allowing my essentially to draft without the pretty writing you mention, while at the same time going deep into the story (much like how script writers story board their plot points, scenes and beats). I wish I’d discovered it on the third manuscript (the one I’m still working on and haven’t given up on yet), but nonetheless, without those school lessons, I’d had to learn from my share of mistakes.
The best lesson of all, though, is to keep writing and looking for ways to make your fiction stronger. Explore, read, learn, share with other writers who have taken different forks in the path (thank you, my wise friends!). Be willing to start anew I connect to the heart of the story and follow the pull of intuition deeper into its path. Draft one and the story that comes to me isn’t necessarily the story I want to tell, but draft one presents the opportunity for me to discover it.
The great thing about this craft of ours is that the order of things can go any which way our imagination takes us. We can start with a plot (“What if…”) and find story within it. We can start with a character and find a plot and then a story. Or we can feel a story and then devise a plot and a character. I recently wrote about everything coalescing around a “mirror moment” in the middle, and have found that it works a kind of magic in drawing all of this (story, backstory, transformation) together. And, further, this moment can be devised whenever the writer wants–at the beginning of things (it can even be the very first thing), at the end of a draft, or somewhere in between.
I would thus temper unambiguous assertions that structure or the Hero’s Journey will ALWAYS “lead you astray.” In fact, it might be the thing that leads to the very best story. The Hero’s Journey is just another way to describe and dramatize inner transformation. The outer journey is what forces the inner struggle. Thinking in these terms is another way of getting at the core.
Structure is also story’s best friend, because it enables story to connect with audience. A story, no matter how deeply felt, can bore the crap of us if it doesn’t know how to present itself. This might be what Don is getting at vis-a-vis programs that concentrate on beautiful sentences and deep sentiment, but ignore mundane items like plot and structure.
Absolutely, James. Structure is the frame of the house, if you will. Every writer works differently. I like to start with a basic premise, develop the main character’s internal and external goals and then build the story from there. Others start with a story idea and flesh out a plot and then work on characterization. Whatever your preference, if you don’t understand structure, you will not produce a coherent story. Thanks for the reminder.
Thanks, Lisa. A thoughtful and useful post.
And it goes right along with what agents are always asking, But what does the character want? Your discussion fleshes out that requirement.
Lisa–
I can’t remember any experiences as a child–in or out of the classroom–that invited or required me to act on a story prompt. I’m old, and no doubt such lessons are latter-day innovations. But my parents read, and read to me. They invested my childhood with the spirit of books. Reading became integral to my adult life–it became my way of gaining some mastery over experience. And so I learned as I went, in college, after college and graduate school, etc. Are the best among the explosion of recent “how-to” books useful? Yes–but IMO, only with this caveat: guides and manuals notwithstanding, the would-be writer who hasn’t developed a passion for reading is delusional. Is this too obvious to need saying–again? I had students in college-level courses who could not see why reading–familiarity with the written language–should be important to someone who wanted to improve his writing. In the end, no “painting by numbers” approach is going to mean much to such people. Nor, I would think, are dumb prompts in childhood likely to derail anyone committed to mastering anything so complex as writing novels.
Always appreciate your posts, Lisa, though this process is not entirely how my brain works. For me, part of the pleasure in writing is discovering the story’s point, which can happen as late as the climax, believe it or not, even when I think I know what’s going on. (I’m not advocating this as a method, BTW. It can be immensely frustrating and slow.)
Do you suppose a writer eventually discovers their themes and can work forward from there? Right now, I’m presented with intriguing scenarios and problems then have to work backward and forward to understand backstory, motivation, etc. Then I have to shift the external plot to amplify the internal conflict. But maybe one day my brain will settle into your orderly process. (Ha! Hahaha. Ha.)
As for your students, I’m sure the structure would help craft a solid piece for their test.
Ah, Jan, there is so much here I’d love to respond to, and so damn little time to do it! Yes, to the going back and forth. No to the not knowing the point. I think you can know that from the get go, but only by zeroing in on your protag’s “misbelief” first — not in general, but specifically, in scene form, before you begin to map out the plot (which is created to force her to struggle with said misbelief). That’s what the story is about. To create a plot without knowing that tends (read: almost always) ends up in a manuscript that’s basically just a bunch of thing that happen. I believe there IS a way to nail down the story first — and then map out the plot. It’s the only thing that can cut down on, as you mention here, the massive amount of time spent rewriting (not to mention the frustration ;-). Plus it leads to deeper, more compelling stories. Wish I had more time to spell it out here, I’m currently working on a book to do just that. And finally, my advice on theme is: forget it altogether. Theme is a vague, ambiguous, general term that’s far more damaging (read paralyzing) than helpful. Instead of theme, ask yourself, what’s my point? If story is about, as T.S. Eliot said, “returning to where you began and seeing the place for the first time,” your point is: what is going to change in how the protag sees the place at the end? Which means you need to know exactly she see it going in. And not in general, but specifically. What specific misbelief keeps her from seeing it as she will at the end? What specifically happened (in scene form) that caused the misbelief? And, most importantly, WHY does she believe it? Story isn’t about the WHAT (the plot) it’s always, always, always about the internal WHY. It’s not what she did, it’s why. WOW, sorry, got carried away here!
Please don’t apologize for getting carried away! I’ve had a hectic month but have returned to your response several times. It’s amazing how often its questions which become the drivers to understanding.
Happily, it would seem I know the answers for my present WIP. (Which makes me distrust it, because it seems to easy; how’s that for neuroticism?) But this will help me enormously with an unfinished novel–languishing because I couldn’t figure out a key scene.
Lisa. Look forward to reading your future book, and to being able to thank you in person in November!
Third graders have comparatively low cognitive abilities when it comes to separating out distinguishable though indivisible, for example, narrative features, comparable to adults. They do have innate and developed imaginations, though, and intuitive storytelling skills: general rhetorical models either learned or imitated. This is make-believe play, at heart a fiction-inventing activity.
Three requisite “aspects” in E.M. Forster’s Aspects of the Novel and in Seymour Chatman’s Story and Discourse of narrative are events, settings, and characters as distinguished though indivisible from “Story” and “Plot.”
E.M. Forster defines story: “A story is a narrative of events arranged in their time sequence.”
He also defines plot: “‘The king died and then the queen died,’ is a story. ‘The king died, and then the queen died of grief,’ is a plot.” A sequence of events nonetheless, though an emphasis on causality. Note also an antagonism from the king’s death and an emotional feature from “grief;” that is, a tension feature. The sequence also has a beginning, the king’s death, a middle, the grief, and an end, the queen’s death; a complete action, in Aristotle’s causation sense, begun with a first cause and an effect and ended by an outcome in which a character is transformed. Superficial action, though. Setting somewhat implied of a royal court, characters though.
Depth of action comes from a surface, external-world action concurrent and correlated to an internal, interior-life action. These are the so-called external and internal “conflicts” of writing discussions.
Dramatic conflict, though, in the literary sense, is a diametric opposition of stakes and potential outcomes forces: want or problem generally, life or death, acceptance or rejection, riches or rags, for examples; an internal conflict from the case of the boy finds a harmless snake in the home shrubbery that may scare Mom, is tempted to scare her with it, is one of cooperation–shared efforts for shared outcomes–or confrontation–clashed efforts for clashed outcomes.
Motivations are another matter, say the boy wants to show Mom the snake to show her he’s a big boy, not a scaredy-cat, like he’d show Dad or his boy peers; problem, Mom may react more from fear than from pride. The boy knows snakes terrify her. Feedback loop. He deals with the snake without her knowledge: self-actualization, emotional growth, maturation.
For dramatic effect, though, the impact is stronger if he shows her the snake. However, that outcome will heretofore be left in abeyance . . . Secretly deal with the snake, one complete sequence of events. Show Mom the snake, a longer sequence of events.
The boy, Mom, the snake, and the shrubbery: event sequence, setting, characters in at least antagonizing contention if not confrontation or greater anatgonizing cause and effect; story event sequence and plot antagonism, causation, and tension; external and internal “conflict,” and, more so, concurrent external and internal complication motivation (want and problem wanting satisfaction).
But third graders cannot hold the many related, distinguishable though indivisible narrative concepts in the mind at the same time; maybe not until much older can that be possible. Meanwhile, make-believe play suffices for performance genre composition.
Why does school take the fun out of play? Because the education administration has no joy in it and misery loves company.
I’ve read this post several times this morning to try to figure out why it bothered me so much. I thank you for giving me something to think about so deeply today.
I must say that while I understand the point made here – that children should be taught the elements of good writing, one of which is solid story structure, I disagree with the basic premise that an open-ended story prompt is ” boring,” or limiting, or necessarily leads to plot-driven writing. In fact, it seems to me that the author herself demonstrates exactly the opposite in her examples here.
She claims that “Suzy wakes up to find she is an alien” is paralyzing because it presents too many choices – but at this level of writing, one in which I think the intent is simply to engage the child and inspire her to write, isn’t a wide range of choices exactly what we might want to give her to work with? And why does such a prompt necessarily lead to a plot-driven narrative? It doesn’t seem to in the author’s later example of the rustling in the bushes – there the child who is supposed to serve as a “bad” example imagines, quite vividly, a sparrow eating a worm. I don’t see plot-driven narrative there at all. I see, most of note, a simile that tells quite us a lot about the character of the brother through the bird.
Then we go on to read about a situation in which the open-ended prompt, supposedly “paralyzing” with too many possibilities, is given some rules that will make it easier for the child to write a “good” story, that has a “structure” whose purpose is to create a good “product.”
I am certain the children in this situation were indeed enthusiastic – rules do tend to make us feel safe because we have a clearer picture of what is expected of us. And so we end up a story that is created, as I read it, out of a kind of classroom group-think application of an additional set of rules intended to produce the kind of story the author feels is the “best” one. When I read about the classroom exchanges I could not help but wonder about the quiet child in the back who had a different vision of how the story should go, who no doubt got the message quite clearly that hers was not at all a “good” story because it didn’t satisfy the formula necessary for one. Talk about paralyzing.
I understand the author’s point about plot-driven vs. character-driven narrative, but I don’t think that kindergarten is the proper place to play this argument out. Can we not allow children have the problem of “too many choices” while they still can? They will have far too few soon enough, it seems to me.
Jennifer–There’s no “like” button today, so here’s my “like.” What you say in your comment makes perfect sense to me.
All I can say, Jennifer, is that the stress level of the kids given the open ended prompts was through the roof. They were paralyzed. Not a good thing. Studies have shown, BTW, that too much choice is paralyzing — what happens is, first of all, we have no context in which to judge the meaning of our choice, and no matter what we choose, if it isn’t perfect, we tend to then instantly think one of the other choices would have been better.
You’re absolutely right that kids, often love to follow rules, because it makes them feel safe, and they quickly learn to parrot back what the teacher expects, rather than what they actually believe. Which was a big part of what the school in NJ was trying to counter. That is, they wanted kids to think for themselves. They wanted them to figure out what mattered to them. What point they’d want to make, what they wanted other people to know about. This method tapped into that, and it worked. No one was talking about a “good” story, but an “effective” story — meaning, a story that grabbed the kids instantly, inciting that sense of urgency that made them want to know what happened next. If a story doesn’t do that, what’s the point?
I love the way you unpacked the essential elements of plot vs story. It’s something some writers feel intuitively, but generally for young children it’s great to have it spelled out. Well, and maybe for older kids too. :)
The books that endure are not ones where, as you said, silly things happen at a fast pace, but novels where the characters endure/give in to/overcome significant (and hopefully relatable) challenges.
Check mark (or thumb up) on LIKE for Johanna. Where is the like symbol?
I just copy and pasted those five “takeaway” steps. A lightbulb went off when I read them. This is why my recent short stories are going nowhere. Thank you for breaking this down!
I get little confused when people use the word “plot”.
I always thought plot was a person’s plan for a story.
Now, I’m wondering what is story and what is plot?
It seems like the words are used pretty loosely at times.
Despite that, I think I understand the statement, story comes before plot. I think. I definitely understand the bullets.
Brian, I could not agree with you more. My whole point about story is making that dividing line between “plot” and “story” clear: The “story” is NOT about the plot, it’s about how the plot affects the protagonist. THAT — the protagonist’s inner change is what the story is about. THAT is story. And that must come first — because the plot is then constructed to spur that change. That’s why thinking about the plot first tanks most stories. And is, IMHO, never the place to start. That’s what I teach in workshops and at UCLAx. Sometimes the maddening thing when writing short posts, is that I can’t go into it in detail in each one, so your very astute point often comes up. Kills me! Thanks for letting me get that off my chest! ;-)
Okay, I picking up what you’re putting down. Thanks Lisa!!!!
Helpful words, as always. I agree with the story being internal, but I don’t start writing anything until I have some sort of an outline (personally, I love The Hero’s Journey). Otherwise I’d have no idea where I’d be taking my characters, or how the point of my story plays out. However, I also use your book, Wired For Story, alongside as I’m writing the outline so that I’m not just writing out the plot points, but really paying attention to how my character will react and change along the way. I also remember that nothing is set in stone and all of these elements are free to change organically as I do the actual writing.
I love what you said in the comment above: the protagonist’s inner change is what the story is about. YES!