Story Magic

67 - All is Lost vs Dark Night of the Soul beats

• Golden May

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Today, Emily & Rachel talk about the All is Lost vs Dark Night of the Soul story structure beats. 

What you’ll learn from this episode:

  • What role these two beats play in story structure
  • The difference between these two beats (and why they exist) 
  • How to execute them on the page


SHAPE OF ARCS class recording: https://goldenmayediting.com/arcs-recording-062024/


Ready to make readers so in love with your characters they can’t stop biting their nails in anticipation?  Grab The Magic of Character Arcs free email course: https://www.goldenmayediting.com/arcsmagic


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Emily:

Hey, writers. Welcome back to story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of.

Rachel:

I'm Rachel.

Emily:

And I'm Emily.

Rachel:

And today we are talking about the story beats. All is lost versus Dark Knight of the Soul. So these are two beats of story that are included in most story structures with different terminology, but these specific beats are terminology that are included in the save the cat story structure. But the same concepts apply in any basically character arc, arc of change. Anything that has a character starting in one place, changing to another thing by the end of the story, these two beats are going to be included. So it's all is lost versus dark Night of the Soul. What are they? What's the differences? Why do they exist? We get this question a lot. I think there's some overlap and some confusion about how do you treat them? Are they separate scenes or are they the same scene? What's the difference? That's what we're going to be talking about today.

Emily:

Yeah. And if you attended our or watched the recording for our shape of character arcs class, we talked quite a bit about the all is lost moment. And I actually think we called it that. We called it the big plot failure. Yeah, but that's essentially what it is. And we actually got a question from someone in that class who asked if our shape of character arcs.

Rachel:

Can be applied framework. Framework.

Emily:

Framework structure can be applied to other plots. And the answer is yes. Because in most plot, most, at least western plots, where you have a character who's learning something, they have this big moment where they fail, where their mistakes come back to bite them. And that is rock bottom enough that they learn from it. And so you'll find that moment in a lot of structures like the three act structure and the save the cat structure and the hero's journey, those are the ones that come to mind first. But you'll see this all as last moment in all of the structures, whether it's called that or not.

Rachel:

Yes. So there are two separate things on purpose because they mark two separate important moments. And let's just dive in with talking about what they are, and then we can talk about the execution, how they go on the page. All is lost is that big plot failure that Emily was talking about, where all of the consequences of your character's flawed decisions are now coming back to bite them, and they experience a massive failure that results in a rock bottom moment. So it's called all is lost because it literally appears that all is lost. Oh, no. Oh, no. Where are we going? What's happening? Uh oh. Everything is terrible. We've lost. Sometimes it's really dramatic, like we've lost this major battle and we're about to die. Or sometimes it's like a breakup in a romance, where we have this breakup scene and the characters have no idea how to continue this relationship. And I'm trying to think of in middle grade books, often with themes of friendship, even. It can be like there's a rift in a friendship, or this is where everything that they have been doing flawed is now going to circle back around and it's going to be bad. That's the vibes of the all is lost.

Emily:

Everything blows up. So I feel like there's three key things, three key pieces to an all is lost that you want to use to spur your character to change. And let me know if you think of any others. But the three that are coming to mind are you. It needs to be that they've lost on their goals, right? They lost everything that mattered to them. The plans that they had when they broke into two, when they started act two, when they launched into the story and decided to start taking actions. Those plans fail at this moment. So it can't just be like any blow up, any explosion. It needs to be an explosion of their actual plans. The second piece is that you want it to be a moment where they lose what's most important to them. So regardless of what the plot failure is, the thing that they actually want, their internal goal, their deeper human desire, they need to lose that in this moment also. So it's not just like, oh, my plot plans, my big plans to save the world failed. It's like you also lost the deepest, the thing you most deeply desired. And then the third thing is that it needs to be your character's fault. It needs to be a result of their mistakes. Those are, like, the three big things that are coming to me. We could break them down further. But anything else occurring to you?

Rachel:

No, I think that pretty much covers it. And I think people can take those three things to the most literal, extreme and, like, also realize that, you know, when it's your character's fault, it's like a compounding effect of all of the things that they've done, you know, so far that have been flawed. If they're losing, like, their most important thing, internally as well as externally, like, that doesn't necessarily have to be like a death. It can be a whiff. It can be like a. Oh, no, it can be. There's. It's very weighted, like, when they've lost everything they can feel the implications of having lost everything. It doesn't necessarily mean that, like, they die and everyone around them dies. Like, it just needs to be powerful enough that it, like, smacks them in the face and. And links them towards their. Their change moment, which is the dark night of the soul. And. And we'll talk about that.

Emily:

But I keep thinking of. Of Bridgerton, where you end up with, like, the women are injured and they die. Right? It's like they don't actually need to die the man to be like, I can lose you.

Rachel:

Yes, exactly. It's like. It's the. I think people, when they're developing this plot moment, like, go so hard in the external that they lose the internal meaning, and then it ends up becoming, like, stale or contrived or way too plot heavy. But, like, a lot of the. A lot of the all is lost is the emotional implications of having alienated themselves or damaged their relationships and the people around them, or, you know, just having affected their world in a negative way. Like, there's a lot of different ways that this can. This can play out that's really painful. That isn't just straight up, like, everybody died or, like, our nation has fallen to its knees. It can feel a lot of different things.

Emily:

I think one of the most powerful points of an all is lost is. Or, like, effects of an all is lost is that your character, and we'll talk about this with the dark night of the soul, but it's this moment where your character loses everything, and it's like, oh, man, if I had done something differently or looked at the world differently or seen people differently back way earlier in the story, then this wouldn't have happened. It's like, that impact, and so I don't know. You want to transition into talking about the darkness soul now? Because I think that this is where people get confused. So the all is lost is the moment when they lose everything, right? It's literally the rock bottom moment, when they lose the things that they loved, when the external plot comes back to bite them because of choices that they've made. Secrets come to light. That's another good one. But the dark night of the soul is when they process it, right? Because people don't change immediately. We don't make a mistake and then immediately be like, oh, that was a mistake. I'm a new person, right? It takes us time to admit it, to really think back on the choices that we have made, that we wish we had made differently, and to admit that we were wrong. And that's what the dark night of the soul is for.

Rachel:

Yeah, yeah. And as you've just framed it, these are two separate events, but they're linked together, but they are not the same thing. We need to experience how terrible the all is lost is end. Okay, then we can move into the reflection. Why did everything go wrong? How did we get here? This was my fault. What am I going to do about it? Like, when you get to. When you transition through these things, they are separate events. And to a reader, it's not going to feel exactly that way. But to us, as authors, we need to be thinking about them separately because they are important character moments that follow a specific pacing. It's not like as your character is experiencing the terrible things that are happening to them at the same time in their head, they're like, oh, no, I should change. Everything terrible happens, period. And then we get into the breath the morning after the. Then we get into the time where they can reflect, they can talk to other people, and they can realize the errors of their ways and how they were partly or wholly responsible for it. But the dark night of the soul beat is all of that time where they're like, oh, no, I need to react to what just happened. I am reacting. I'm thinking. I'm processing. I'm wondering. And through those processing moments, we come to the conclusion. And it's literally called, like, the epiphany, the dark knight epiphany of I messed up. It's a personal responsibility that your character feels in that moment where when they're in their all is lost. They are not feeling their personal responsibility. They are, like, railing against how terrible everything is. But when we get to dark night of the soul beat, we need the brooding, the breakthrough moment where they accept their personal responsibility. They hear the lesson that they need to learn, they adopt the lesson, and they try on this new way of thinking. So by the time we close the dark night of the soul beat, they are willing to face their wounds, they're willing to face their flaws, and they are willing to make changes, to behave differently. And that is the marker of, okay, we're going into act three. So dark night of the soul closes with, I am changing. I'm ready to change. I'm ready to do. Then we go into break into three, and it's like, let's do better.

Emily:

Let's do better.

Rachel:

Let's do better.

Emily:

Yeah. And I think it's important. So if we're talking about specifically, like, structure, like, where do these things happen? I often get this story, like, in a scene where does the all is loss happen? Well, the actual all is lost moment. I have lost everything. Like, beat in the story is usually the turning point of the all is lost scene. And sometimes I'll have people be like, oh, okay, the turning point happened. And so the choice they make in that scene now they're gonna do better. And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. That's way too fast. Right. The choice in the all is lost scene, they're still clinging to their internal obstacle. They have not processed the fact that this is the result of their own actions yet. They need a while to process that. And so the all is lost is a single scene. It's a single scene with a turning point in which they lose everything. Right. But the dark night of the soul can be a couple of scenes where they're processing, refusing to admit that they were wrong and then processing some more. And then, you know, talking to people, like, seeing the results of their mistake play out. Right. Cause the all is lost is a single moment, but it's gonna have ripple effects. And so as those ripple effects go through the story, then they might start to realize that they're the reason that that mistake, that failure happened and start to climb out of it and realize the error of their ways.

Rachel:

Yes. Yeah. I really think people lose how much processing. We need to experience a major shift in worldview. We have felt terrible. We felt really bad about it in the all is lost. But we still need to, this character, we still need to think about. We're still pushing and pulling against this belief. And one of the questions that we got in the arcs class, the shape of arcs class was, can a third party shed some light on this situation or is that narrative cheating? And absolutely, it's very common in the dark night of the soul beat to have secondary characters, to have other people, like, be involved in this processing. It can be like, like you said, all is lost is that single scene beat. Dark night of the soul tends to be more than that. And throughout this processing, like, you're, you're going to have them. Or it's common to have them run up against other people that are like, can you not see this was your fault? And they're like, no, it wasn't. And then maybe they get some pushback or maybe they get some resistance, or maybe they're, like, processing out loud to this other character and this other character is helping them, helping them see the truth. So they need some time to do that. And that is not something that disengages readers. I also feel like people are like, oh, well, I don't want them to be too in their head for too long because readers will get bored. Like, no, they won't. That's what we're literally reading for this moment, for the dark night of the soul beat. We want to see them change. We want to see them get there. And all that processing is what helps readers get there, too. It's like what helps readers adopt the new beliefs, too.

Emily:

Yeah, we really need to see it on the page, and we need to see them really processing the decisions that they made earlier in the story and admitting to themselves and to others right out loud on the page in words the reader could read, processing the fact that they made mistakes and why they believe those were mistakes and how they're going to act differently moving forward and why. Right? Like all of the, it's like, why, why? Why is the key to the Dark Knight of the soul. The other thing that I think can be really helpful is when we're thinking about the shape of character arcs, what we taught in that class. And if you weren't able to come to the class or you haven't seen it yet, you can still access the recording@goldenbayediting.com. arcs. Arcs. So that if you don't know what we're talking about right now, but essentially the basics of an arc are a character has a flawed belief. A plot problem happens to them externally. It's not their fault. It just happens to them. And then they make a bad decision about how they're going to go about doing it. And then that bad decision leads to the all is lost moment, this big plot failure where, you know, they realize that they had a bad approach before. And so there's this mirror that I found really helpful when I realized this in, at least in the save the cat structure and the hero's journey and ones that are similar to it where your character at that plot problem that happens, the inciting incident, the catalyst, whatever you want to call it, at the beginning of the story, they have a series of scenes right after that that are called the debate scenes where they're like, what am I going to do about this thing that just happened? Right? And then they decide to do the wrong thing, the flawed thing, the misguided thing. And so this is a mirror to that. Now a plot failure has happened, and they have a series of scenes where they're going to decide, what am I going to do about it, right? You can really look at those beats in your story to figure out how you are bookending your character's. Arc because you're presenting them with a plot problem, they're making a bad decision about it, and then you're presenting them with another plot problem. And if it's a positive arc, they're going to make a better decision about it. And so those debate and dark night of the soul scenes can really kind of mirror each other, where your character is showing what their mindset was at the beginning of the book and now that they're about to change, how their mindset is going to shift.

Rachel:

Yeah, I love that. This is what I like about the type of structure that save the cat is. Is still very open with, like, the quote, the things that need to happen, you know, and, but I appreciate how it is a mirroring and it is a, like, you're using that mirror to demonstrate change and all of that. Just like this is helpful in aiding, like to aid us in pushing a character along their arc. We very closely pair save the cat with character arc stuff because they match up so well. It just works anyway.

Emily:

Yeah. So a lot of our resources, if you're in tenacious writing, you'll see us talk about save the cat all the time. We use it with our plotting structures and stuff, but we're pretty loose about it because we just think it's a really good way to tie plot events to this character change. Like the beats of character change that we're talking about. And so that's why we really love using these craft tools. Obviously, you can use other craft tools and like we said, you're going to find. You're going to find this all is lost and dark. Night of the soul structure in most, at least western story structures, because those structures are based around somebody changing and then that change rippling out into the world around them.

Rachel:

Yeah. Awesome.

Emily:

Cool. Any other tips? Tricks?

Rachel:

No, I think that's it. I think that's it. The last thing I think we haven't talked about is what percent of the story this happens to. We've laughed about this before of like, there's, these percents are guidelines, not actual rules. But this is happening between 75% to 80%. We are in the latter half of the book here. We're in the latter half of the latter half if we're towards the end, because then we can go into the last 20% of the book, which is act three with, like, we have a good idea of what we're doing, we're on the right track. We have a new set of plans to achieve our goals, and these are the right ones. So this is happening towards the end. If that hasn't already been clear.

Emily:

The last thing that I would add is we might get folks asking us, do you need this in a negative arc? And yes, you do. You need an all is lost and you need a dark night of the soul in a negative arc. The only difference is how the dark night of the soul ends, right? Your character still needs to grapple with did they make a mistake or not? People still need to try to convince them that they did make a mistake, right? And get them to see the error of their ways. And the difference between a positive and a negative arc is that at the end of that dark night of the soul, the character says, no, I'm not going to change. I didn't make a mistake. I'm going to persist with this internal obstacle that I have with this flawed worldview, and I'm going to keep making mistakes. And so that sets them up for a negative act three where they're not going to succeed and get getting their goals because they didn't change. But you still need that opportunity for change. That's what makes a negative arc so delicious to watch because it's in such a train wreck. Because you're watching this character look the opportunity to make the right decision in the face and choose not to, which is just my favorite.

Rachel:

Yes, yes. Love it. All right, so I'll put the link to the character arcs class in the show notes. So if you're interested in watching that, go grab it from there. It's a wonderful recording of a free class we did in June 2024. So go check, check that out. And we've got, if you're like, I want to know more about character arcs in general outside of that class, go check out our blog. We have so much stuff there. And as always, of course, we've got even more in tenacious writing.

Emily:

So yeah, endless resources.

Rachel:

Endless writing resources in tenacious writing that breaks down, like, each of the beats of save the cat, each of the beats of story structure into a lot more depth with examples, which is always fun.

Emily:

Awesome. If you want to build a successful, fulfilling, and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list.

Rachel:

Sign up now to get our free email course. The magic of character arcs after seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night.

Emily:

Link in the show notes. We'll see you there.