Your One Thing (Which Might Not Be Anyone Else's Thing, But Share Anyway)

[Legendary Sidekick]

Every once in a while, I see some awesome advice and I sort of run with what I like… and then I sort of get creative and find my own way. Some own ways work better than others.

Anyway, Helio posted Pixar's way HERE and that inspired me to attempt a new way of planning for my characters. Basically, I'm a pantser. When my story outlines become too cumbersome, I find I do a lot of outlining and never get to the story. My best stories are the ones where I had a single prompt and built a story around it… but those were <10K-word shorts.

The McGoo method is my happy medium. I realize the senile man who's a fatal car accident waiting to happen is Mr. Magoo, but I wasn't trying for an acronym anyway.

The GOO is Goal-Obstacle-Outcome. Actually, I have Overcome in my notes, but if you change it to outcome you have all nouns and the character can fail to overcome the obstacle like so:

GOAL: Find a fair maiden who is rich and thinks a lanky knight is handsome as long as his full helm hides his pimples.
OBSTACLE: There's only one princess like that, and a dragon is keeping her in a cage as its pet.
OUTCOME: The knight becomes part of the dragon's complete breakfast and stays crispy in milk.

With multiple protagonists, I had to set up a goal-obstacle-outcome for each character so they could be an adventuring trio but have individual goals. The goals do not make the story. They make the characters. The story is written so all three have obstacles to personal goals and the chance to overcome them.

But like I said, I tend to do best when I have a prompt… so here's the MC piece of what I'm doing: Myth-Character.

I decided the Greek Myths are fun, and with female protagonists, I feel the need to reverse some injustices. Hercules slew all the amazons when all he was asked to do was get the queen's belt, which she gave to him. Yeah, yeah, he was tricked. Tell that to the dead amazons.

So anyway, for my amazon character, I have this:

MYTH: The 9th Labor
CHARACTER: Baldhart Eisenberg

Okay, but Baldy's not Hippolyta and there's no Olympian telling a demigod to brutalize women, pick apples, and cut off hydra heads until they stop growing back. So how do I work in this myth? I keep some parts, like the man is still strong and connected to someone powerful. Not a demigod, but the son of the CEO of Thunderware, a company that harnesses lightning and sells it in bottles, cans, or those Chinese take-out boxes. (TBD)

Baldhart uses the belt to keep her pants from falling down. Nah. That's stupid. So what the hell is the belt for? It's a magic belt that is useful for harnessing lightning and that's why……… no. That takes too long to explain and leaves questions. Why can't a rich asshole have someone make fifty belts just like Baldy's? Baldy needs to have what a rich asshole can't have. So……… she defeated Queen Hippo. Not in a death-match, but in a (friendly) wrestling match. Only a woman can win this title, so a male muscle head can't have it no matter how rich or strong he is. This I can work with:

MYTH: The 9th Labor
CHARACTER: Baldhart Eisenberg
GOAL: Defend her title.
OBSTACLE: The strongest man in the world thinks her title is a joke.
OUTCOME: She wins, but…

…but of course the Thunderware CEO is a power-mad wizard so now our heroines end up with a stronger enemy.

So that's how my simple five-line notes quickly stretch into a story I'm interested in writing.



How about you? What is your One Thing? What inspired your method? Is it working? (If you're writing with enthusiasm, the answer is yes.)

Please use this thread as a means to share what works for you, even though your way might not work for many others.

 

[FifthView]

I'm not incredibly systematic, in general, beyond outlining specific events through chapters.

I feel I need to improve my approach to characters the most, and I like Heliotrope's recent mention of Emotional Goal and Physical Goal for characters as a general framework.

My one One Thing, mentioned some time ago in a thread about maintaining tension, is a general outline for chapters:

2. POV Character's Motivation and Goal
   
   
3. Conflict
   • Hurdles/Obstacles
   • Actual Physical Conflicts (Fights/Battles, Environmental Opposition)
   • Interpersonal Conflicts (Relationships, Personalities)
   • Internal Conflicts (Doubts, Desires/Fears, Madness/Confusion/Illusion, etc.)
4. POV Character's Movement (Activity Directed Toward Goal and/or by Motivation, Taking Into Account Conflicts)

This looks similar to your GOO. Although, come to think of it, perhaps I need Outcome tagged on to the end of my list. (That was something that has gone without saying, i.e., a natural culmination of "POV Character's Movement.")

But there is one other thing that I keep in mind while creating the nuts and bolts of character actions and interactions, something I picked up after years of studying military theory, The OODA Loop:

Observe
Orient
Decide
Act

I've expanded and modified a version of OODA for myself, with more detail. I don't usually keep in mind the actual loop as I write. It's more of a habitual way of looking at character behavior and the interactions of multiple characters at this point.

 

[Caged Maiden]

Wow, Sidekick...MCGOO, huh...I like it! It's so easy to remember, too. You know what makes this such a fun thing to consider, it's so clear in its meaning (Goal, Obstacle, Outcome), but you know, I've had an amazingly difficult time just simplifying a scene into those exact terms. Thanks for sharing! I'm...um...well, I can't really say I'm stealing your GOO...because that sounds weird. Wow, this could be an awkward conversation...but I'll use your clever acronym to remember this. Lately, I've been looking at each scene and breaking it down into its two or three main goals, to make sure things are all supporting the function of each scene.


I'm not sure I have a "one thing" that makes my writing good, or me unique, or whatever. In fact, I've been trying to be un-unique for years. I was trying to sound like the bulk of mid-list writers out there, to "sell" books, and look "professional". It wasn't until the "Serious Writer Voice" thread that I understood that the thing I was shooting for, the goal at the end of my contortionist act...wasn't even good. It was just "good enough".

Well...that was a harsh awakening. For a while, I didn't know what to do with myself. I began writing in my own voice again. A voice I ran from for years because I considered it too basic and lame. I'm sort of weird.. Weird and blunt. I know a lot about strange little things, and I work that stuff into my stories through weird characters who are...yep, you guessed it, blunt.

So weird and blunt, I guess, is my thing now. It's how I talk, it's now how I write.

I couldn't, in the end, run from my own voice any longer. No acronym. I was trying to just come up with a funny one, but then I thought it might detract from the thread's message.

My tactic to share: Be yourself. Be brave. And if helps you to pull off the first two, be weird.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

Hmm...I don't really have a particular method of planning and writing stories. Every story works differently. But, I usually start with the characters. I have to make them real and get inside them to find out who they are...not just what they want, their goals, but what kind of people they are. What are they afraid of? What are they insecure about? What do they think about when they can't sleep? What do they do when they're bored? What makes them very, very angry? These are the kinds of questions I like to ask and explore. The characters make the story.
I'm definitely not an outliner, but I'm not a pantser either. I always have a pretty detailed idea of what the story will be before I write it, but I have to allow that vision to be molded and shaped and changed. Writing it down makes it too concrete. I let it grow in my head and nurture it and let it evolve.

 

[Heliotrope]

I think my one thing that I try to focus on most is what I call "so...but...."

It is something I noticed I do when telling my son stories, and it really works. How "so...but" works is as I'm telling the story, if I find it dragging I know I need to throw a "so...but" in there.

Ex: once upon a time there was a boy named Joey who liked to swim. Sohe joined a swim team. Buthe wasn't very good. So he practiced everyday, but he injured his shoulder so he was supposed to take time off, but there was a big competition coming up he wanted to win, so he practiced anyway, but soon he couldn't even move his arm....

I find when I'm writing an actual story the more so/but cycles I have the more engaging the story is because something is always happening. Always a new twist.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

I think my one thing that I try to focus on most is what I call "so...but...."

It is something I noticed I do when telling my son stories, and it really works. How "so...but" works is as I'm telling the story, if I find it dragging I know I need to throw a "so...but" in there.

Ex: once upon a time there was a boy named Joey who liked to swim. Sohe joined a swim team. Buthe wasn't very good. So he practiced everyday, but he injured his shoulder so he was supposed to take time off, but there was a big competition coming up he wanted to win, so he practiced anyway, but soon he couldn't even move his arm....

I find when I'm writing an actual story the more so/but cycles I have the more engaging the story is because something is always happening. Always a new twist.

Wow, this sounds like a good method. Simple, but effective. I should try this when telling my younger brothers stories.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

that sounds weird. Wow, this could be an awkward conversation...

And remember, you can't make GOO until you GO.

^(Worse if you somehow work "pantsing" into that.)

For me, goal-obstacle is the critical piece to plan. I have no trouble giving my characters personalities, settings to wreak havoc in, and happening shit. I do (more often than not) end up with rather aimless stories which I just put down and forget about, and I feel like the characters' personal goals are the reasons why I can never have a team of protagonists. Their goals are unified, and that comes off as one character and a party of followers.

So, whatever the team goal is to overcome the main obstacle in the story, each important character has her own GOO.

Outcome is important in the sense that I need the outcome to be interesting, and not necessarily a success story. Survivable failures can be interesting. So can fatal ones, but for characters I want to keep, major changes can be interesting, tragic, and ultimately positive.

 

[Devor]

I could make a list of these . . . .

First, the concept. I start with the big thing, you know, that one big thing that I want to do that excites me. That could be anything from a character, an event, a place, whatever. Let's say, a medieval fishing submarine. Now I have to support that idea. What do I have to include to make this idea work? Ohh, a techno-magical society, a fishing captain and crew, merchants to sell to, fish that can only be caught by the submarine, conflicts at sea, that sort of thing. I would start listing and deciding on ideas for each of these things until I'm satisfied that I have something that works. Finally, it's time to flesh it out, thinking firmly about finding a solid statement.

I'm looking for a statement that looks something like this:

After losing half his crew and the Dragon Mackerel to the Deadshell Pirates, Captain Jetunas, of the Blueshark Tortoise, decides that he needs to think like the captain of a military vessel in order to stop the Deadshell Pirates, avenge his crew, save the Dragon Mackerel, and restore the magic of the oceans.

In generic terms:

After making things worse, the MC resolves to change to overcome the conflict.

That's my idea of a concept statement. It's a big thing, with it's supporting elements, shaped into a clear and fleshed out statement. As clear and specific as I can get it, with lots of meaning that I understand behind each word.

And from there, it's all details.

 

[Devor]

I think my one thing that I try to focus on most is what I call "so...but...."

It is something I noticed I do when telling my son stories, and it really works. How "so...but" works is as I'm telling the story, if I find it dragging I know I need to throw a "so...but" in there.

Ex: once upon a time there was a boy named Joey who liked to swim. Sohe joined a swim team. Buthe wasn't very good. So he practiced everyday, but he injured his shoulder so he was supposed to take time off, but there was a big competition coming up he wanted to win, so he practiced anyway, but soon he couldn't even move his arm....

I find when I'm writing an actual story the more so/but cycles I have the more engaging the story is because something is always happening. Always a new twist.

You should try posting this as a thread in the challenge forum, with each poster adding a new So/But cycle until it gets ridiculous.

 

[Penpilot]

Goo is exactly what I use to design scenes. I didn't come up with it myself. It's a structure I learned called scene sequel format. What I label as a scene is exactly what you call Goo.

A Scene = Goal, Obstacle, Outcome.

4 possible outcomes. Success, Fail, Success BUT, Fail BUT. Success alone is never achieved until the end of the story. The two BUT results end up with things getting worse. Eg They saved the day, BUT the city got levelled.

Sometimes a better label for this is "action scene" because this is where action takes place.

The companion to this is called the Sequel sometimes better labelled "reaction scene"

Sequel =

Emotional reaction to previous outcome
Logical choices available
Outcomes resulting by choosing each of those available choices
Choice made.

So if we're doing the acronyme thing, call it ELOC

The choice made becomes the Goal for the next GOO scene. Rinse and repeat for a very basic story structure.

ELOC is generally, but not always, where most of the characterisation happens, where stakes are established, and consequences.

IMHO there's an inherent shape to story that we all instinctively gravitate towards. Each of us has a unique spin on how to view it, but to me at least, its like two people trying to describe the same coin. I think that's pretty neat.

 

[DragonOfTheAerie]

You should try posting this as a thread in the challenge forum, with each poster adding a new So/But cycle until it gets ridiculous.

haha! Do it! That sounds like fun!

 

[FifthView]

​

I think my one thing that I try to focus on most is what I call "so...but...."

It is something I noticed I do when telling my son stories, and it really works. How "so...but" works is as I'm telling the story, if I find it dragging I know I need to throw a "so...but" in there.

Ex: once upon a time there was a boy named Joey who liked to swim. Sohe joined a swim team. Buthe wasn't very good. So he practiced everyday, but he injured his shoulder so he was supposed to take time off, but there was a big competition coming up he wanted to win, so he practiced anyway, but soon he couldn't even move his arm....

I find when I'm writing an actual story the more so/but cycles I have the more engaging the story is because something is always happening. Always a new twist.

So Google pops up this as one of the definitions of "so":

"and for this reason"​

So it ties into motivation, goal, cause. So using it creates a chain of motivation/action or cause/effect.

BUT the best laid plans...and so forth.

*Edit: I think it is the famous MRU: motivation-reaction units.

 

[Garren Jacobsen]

I approach my writing by creating set of "rules" to follow in the planning stages. Like for world building I have primary and tertiary characters, I have gone over this before and won't do so here. When planning a story, I usually start at the end, go back to the beginning and work towards that end. Like with my current drafting WIP The Fallen, the goal is to get a young man to turn into a Demon King. So, I start with him being part of a loving community of religiously and legally sanctioned thieves. They get killed. He becomes a mage that can control gravity and motion. He becomes their spy. He figures out he can steal pieces of a person's soul and either imbue himself or another with that element, which can be a memory or even magic. He steals the power to control fire, air, earth, and water. His father-figure will soon be threatened by an attack by their enemies, which he saves but the figure is horribly wounded. But in so doing releases a Demon. He gets banished. He returns with an army and takes over the kingdom because he figures out the prince set up his family's deaths, the paralysis of his father-figure, and starting an unnecessary war to usurp the throne. He takes over, the Demon badguy tries to enslave him, and he takes the Demon's ability to rip into the afterlife. However, he needs to give his powers to others and not take them. The giving purifies the taint of the process of stealing a person's soul, particularly a demon's. He knows this and doesn't care. He wants the power for himself. He becomes, a nigh unbeatable evil dude.

 

[WooHooMan]

My method depends if my story is focused on a character, theme, conflict or setting.

I find most methods that are out there are character-oriented. If you were writing a story where the important thing is the setting or theme and the characters are just there to move it along, these methods aren't much use. At least, not in my experience.
Not only that but they tend to mostly be applied to a single, long piece of work like a novel or a movie which doesn't help much for an episodic format, which is what I mostly work in.

So, I have no real method of plotting a story. It depends on what I'm trying to do.

Generally, what works best for me is that when I get the initial germ of an idea, I talk through it. Like ramble about it for a few minutes - preferably with someone else listening and commenting - and usually a story forms out of that.

 

[Heliotrope]

Lol, I just did a quick search too and turns out I'm not the only one:

The Importance of ‘Therefore’ and ‘But’: Writing Advice from South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone | Aerogramme Writers' StudioWriting Advice from South Park's Trey Parker and Matt Stone

 

[Demesnedenoir]

I've nothing in particular. Stories might start with a high concept, an ending, a beginning, a character, a question, or... whatever. At the scene level, I usually know what the goal is, I might not. Sometimes I tell it what to do, sometimes it tells me what it wants to do... sometimes we meet in the middle and hug it out. I don't formalize anything. If I know a scene should have tension I'm good with that, and then let readers tell me where that tension isn't coming through and try to draw it out.

I will sometimes reverse engineer things when done. For instance, an editor brought up a question about 4 parts of the story, at which point I looked over the novel and went, yeah, you could make an argument it roughly fits that's paradigm. Or out of curiosity, how does this fit a 3 act structure? Or breakdown a scene into goal, conflict, resolution or the yes, but... or what have you. It's more of an exercise than anything else. In screenwriting I hammered out overall and scene by scene structure, and it can be useful even after it becomes old hat, to make the brain think on something a little different.

If I get stuck on the story, I just ask what needs to happen, and then find a way to make it happen. I'm not going to go all geeky on structure like I did in screenwriting, LOL.

No matter how a story idea starts, I want to know how it ends before I start writing, even if details might change. My biggest wastes of writing time as a youth came because I was a discovery writer. Now, I discover the path, but I know where I'm going, heh heh.

 

[FifthView]

Lol, I just did a quick search too and turns out I'm not the only one:

The Importance of ‘Therefore’ and ‘But’: Writing Advice from South Park’s Trey Parker and Matt Stone | Aerogramme Writers' StudioWriting Advice from South Park's Trey Parker and Matt Stone

I think this is another case of what Penpilot mentioned: Story elements are intrinsic, and different people find their own way to the same elements.

On a related note, I've been thinking of the way some elements operate at, or are useful at, multiple scales.

Legendary Sidekick's McGoo seems to address the larger level of a story. The goal is an overarching goal and the obstacle is the major obstacle to that goal. (Edit: or a series of obstacles.) My similar approach is a chapter-oriented scheme, and Penpilot's similar approach is at the level of scene-sequel. But they are still about goals, obstacles, actions and reactions, and outcomes, but just at different levels of the story.

I think MRUs (motivation reaction units) were originally about aspects of engaging fictional prose at the level of sentences through subsections of scenes. I.e., an MC may do many things within a single chapter or within a scene, but each of those actions should have an MRU development. (A sneaking thief is slinking down a hallway. He hears movement around a corner. "So" he pauses and looks around for some place to hide. And so on as he makes his way to his destination; there are choices/reactions to the environment, but as new things appear new choices need to be made, or alterations of the thief's course.) But your So...But approach seems to apply to larger aspects of a story. (A full chapter could be about Joey joining the swim team, but maybe we'd discover in Chapter Two that he's no good, so he starts training hard in that chapter only to hurt his shoulder at the end of Chapter Two. Maybe Chapter Three would be about going behind his parents' and coach's backs to train anyway, perhaps with a co-conspirator friend...who knows a witch doctor who can heal broken bones....)

 

[Steel Dragon]

Maybe this is weird, but I actually write my novels around a video game structure. I have my character notes. And then I follow a loose level -> Boss structure. If I get stuck somewhere, I write a journal entry on the problem and it helps me find a solution. But for the most part, I fly loose and free. To me, structure is a hinderance. I was that kid who would never follow the directions on his Lego set. I immediately wanted to modify it and do my own things. I do the same thing in Warhammer 40k. Yeah, that's a Land Raider, now how do I make it MY Land Raider?

For an example of my Level/Boss structure, here's a few of them from the first novel in my Bloodline series.

Level: Battle of Kandathal Fortress
Boss: Blade King (Lose)

Level: Carriage robbery
Level: Dinner Party
Mini Boss: Valgas (Aeldra win)
Boss: Dread Knight (Loss)

Level: Forest clearing
Boss: Dryad
Phase 1: Will of Stone Dwarves
Phase 2: Tallangar
Phase 3: Dryad

Level: Liberate the town of River's End
Final Boss (Aeldra): Larkin Hendel (Win)
Fonal Boss (Ryssia): Dread Knight (Win)

My books have the "Final Boss" outlined from the start.

Bloodline: Larkin Hendel
Starshard: Starshard
Dragon King: Goldenbane
Worldbreaker: Miordian
Godslayer: Larkin Hendel Final Form

As for my character notes, here's an example from a fan fiction piece I've undertaken to keep myself busy for fun: Stargate Project - Google Docs

I can pretty much build the whole story from that alone, and will.

 

[Chessie]

Hm. There isn't one thing that works for me because at this point, a lot of little things make up my method. Although I've tried outlining before, as I've discussed many times here, it just doesn't work for me. I get bored real quick and out of the handful of stories I've outlined, only one made it to fruition.

My method may seem lazy to some, but it works for me and I've refined it over the course of many years. I get ideas a lot and never write them down. They spin in my head until I'm done with one story and then I start another. Most of what I've written in the past were shorts anyway (novelettes, novellas) so I can bang those out pretty fast.

This is how I do it now:
-look at what's hot on Amazon in the genre I enjoy reading & writing in.

-brainstorm ideas already in my head to what I'm reading/studying that's selling.

-I decide what world/setting the story will go in. I write most of my stories in Mirovinia, which is 1 of 2 fantasy worlds I've created to write in.

-I write up character names and tidbits about the characters.

-Need to have a climax, loose ending, and beginning before I start writing. Typically I do this by handwriting in a notebook. It helps stimulate my brain.

-I come up with an opening sentence and start writing. No outlining. No plotting. Totally stressful but it's the only way I can create. My characters and plot develop with the story. I do get some false starts. I do cut a lot of what I write as I go along. But eventually the story takes shape and I recognize it intuitively.

-This summer has been a bit rough on me far as word count goes, but my main method is just go, go, go. I write the book as fast as I possibly can, backtracking to the previous day's work first to do a cycle of editing before placing fresh words down. I do this a few times so by the end of the book, the manuscript has been edited a good deal, which makes the actual process of editing much smoother for me.

-I do my best to get the story down right the first time. This isn't easy, and it's taken me a long, long time to feel this out. A lot of writers rewrite. Not me. I hate it and it's counterproductive for me. If something doesn't feel right as I'm working on the draft, then I fix it right there and then. So when I draft, there's a lot of taking out, adding in, etc.

-The ending is something intuitive, too. Sometimes it creeps on me. I've failed at it in the past, learned from my mistakes, and soldiered on. Endings are possibly the hardest thing for me still, but I'm getting better at feeling them out. This is why I can't write unless I have a climax and the idea of an ending. I need to know how I'm gonna get there.

-Once the manuscript is written, I do another pass or two, send it to readers, and pretty it up. But this process is faster now because of the way I move through the draft. Depending on what my beta readers/crit partners suggest, I do another couple of changes. However, I don't like to move things around or rewrite new scenes. That's a no for me. Whatever comes out from my creative voice is what stays. I do, though, add in more tension, details, things like that.

And that's my process in a (long, sorry) nutshell.

 

[ThinkerX]

Hmmm...

From Empire (for the series overall, not individual scenes) :

Character: Tia Samos

Tia is the youngest daughter of a family of wealth and influence. As such, she received the best education money could buy, one oriented towards helping the family fortunes grow - things like languages, math, trade laws, that sort of thing, plus a smattering of medicine and astronomy (think navigation). Her parents believe their best route forward is to move from 'wealthy commoners' to 'wealthy aristocrats,' and the best means of accomplishing that goal is for one of their offspring (Tia) to marry one of the many down-on-their-luck nobles running about the Empire.


Goal: Get married to an aristocrat (knight), yet retain a degree of independence.
Obstacle: The aristocrats/knights are mostly major league Male Chauvinistic Pigs, except for the ones who are downright sadistic.
The few descent ones are taken or dead.
Outcome: She starts eying her bodyguard, Sir Peter Cortez.

Character: Sir Peter Cortez

Peter was born on the wrong side of the sheets, which means he inherits exactly zilch from his noble parent. He spent so much time in knightly training as a youth his other skills suffered, and was immediately packed off to fight and die in a distant war. Good news: he somehow survived. Bad news: the demise of the classic knight on horseback is fast approaching and that's all he knows how to be. So...

Goal: Protect Tia. Tia reminds him very much of Tessa (Tia's sister) who died in the war.
Obstacle: Lots of bad guys with spells and sharp pointy objects.
Outcome: Peter and Tia get together...sort of, eventually.

Character: Kyle

Kyle is *big.* You've seen his like in quite a few movies, the big brutal looking guy who'd win a wrestling contest with a grizzly bear. But Kyle is also a peasant with a modicum of magical talent, drafted into the imperial legions and given rather minimal training in sorcery. He went toe to toe with things straight out of nightmare, and still wakes up screaming from time to time. Because, get right down to it, Kyle doesn't see himself as a soldier or a wizard, but as a 'working man.' As part of this, he hired on with Tia as her carriage driver and jack of trades.

Goal: live a normal life
Obstacle: himself. his appearance (enough to frighten small children) and his past (flashbacks and nightmares)
Outcome: He gets there. Eventually. One slow heavy step at a time.


Character: Rebecca

Rebecca is a gypsy, or more accurately, half-gypsy. Except she's on her own, because the unpleasant local authorities in a backward corner of the empire had the entire clan arrested and sentenced to hard labor, apart from a few escapees like Rebecca. As a gypsy, she was trained in music, theft, disguise, and seduction. For a time she was a wandering minstrel, but that's a hard life for a woman alone. Then she met Tia, whose maid had just died. Rebecca offered her services.

Goal: A cushy life in a well off household. One that allows her a bit of independence.
Obstacle: Tia keeps getting in weird situations with magic and monsters straight out of bad legends. Which means Rebecca is also in those situations.
Outcome: ?

Character: Li-Pang

Li-Pang is a cypher. There are major elements of his past he deliberately went to considerable lengths to forget. (Among other things, he's not human, nor is he mortal.) Centuries ago, Li-Pang was a peasant boy with a knack for magic and a strange companion in a land far from the empire. He's had a lot of ups and downs since then, done deeds both 'good' and 'very, very bad.' Not long ago, he 'awakened' from a very bad deed orchestrated by his 'companion' and found himself face to face with Tia, who reminded him of...something. Worth noting: while immensely powerful, Li-Pang is not especially ambitious. Not lazy, just not driven to rule the world or even a fair sized village. His 'companion' is another story. (those who know their Lovecraft would recognize both Li-Pang and his companion under different names.)

Goal: Come to terms with Tia, understand why she is so familiar (and other things)
Obstacle: His 'companion' doesn't care for Tia. Or humans in general. Plus he's an outlaw in a large, well organized human nation
Outcome: radical, fitting, and a wee bit sad.