When students come to class in the second week of my Introduction to Fiction Writing course, they see the words DONUT DEMO written across the top of the board. They know not to ask. Even by week two, they’re used to my cryptic little agendas. 

I start moving furniture. The desks in my classrooms are always arranged in a circle, so I begin sliding a long table into the center and placing a chair at one end. Meanwhile, I pose a simple question. 

“What is a story?”

I’ll quote Flannery O’Connor, who said everyone knows what a story is—until they have to sit down and write one.

Students tend to look left, to look right, without answering. They’ve learned to be suspicious of simple questions. 

So I say again, “What even is a story? Such a common word. We use it all the time. Anyone have a definition?” 

If nobody jumps in, I’ll quote Flannery O’Connor, who said everyone knows what a story is—until they have to sit down and write one. 

Polite giggles break the silence.

“A sequence of events,” someone offers. 

“A necessary sequence of events,” someone amends. 

Someone else says, “A story is about something that happened.” 

Someone adds, “Something with a beginning, middle, and end.”

All are good serviceable definitions. Short. I like to keep my definitions as short as possible. Here’s mine: “Somebody wants something but can’t easily get it. That’s a story, our whole course on a bumper sticker. Everything we’ll do for the next 10 weeks is just an accordioning outward from that simple definition, starting right now with the DONUT DEMO. But first, I have to induct you all into a secret society. Sorry, you don’t have a choice. This is mandatory.”

Everybody looks left, everybody looks right. 

“The reason,” I go on, “is that the demonstration you are about to see relies heavily on the element of surprise. So, for the sake of future generations, I have to ask you not to talk too much about what you are about to see here today.”  

Always nervous laughter at this point.  

“Some of you might even see this demo twice,” I continue. “If you do, there are two stipulations. First, you must recognize how there’s an extra level of dramatic irony in play for you. We’ll talk about dramatic irony in a moment. Second, you must wear a black hat to class that day. Got it? Good.”  

 Uncapping a marker, I approach the board where I pretend to suddenly remember something. “Oh. Almost forgot. I need to ask the professors in adjacent classrooms to ignore the screaming they’re about to hear. One moment.” 

Exiting the room to perplexed guffaws, I stand outside in the hall for no fewer than 45 seconds. The truth is, I did not forget to warn our neighbors. What I am doing at present, standing alone in the hallway, smiling, is allowing my students’ unease to fester. When I eventually open the door again, I say as if to someone behind me, “No, I’ve got plenty of gauze, thanks!”

“OK,” I tell the staring class, “let’s begin.”

The Donut Demo, I explain, breaks down stories into seven elements, which I now marker up onto the board:

CHARACTER

DESIRE

OBSTACLES

STAKES

DRAMATIC IRONY

ALLIES & ENEMIES

TICKING CLOCK

Does every story necessarily have all seven of these? No. But I’d argue almost all contain most. Is this list meant to be exhaustive? Not even close. For example, there is no mention of point-of-view or setting or voice or irony or subtext, and yet I could also argue that those concepts are implicit in the first item on our list, which is where we start. 

Character

If we want to write a real story in class today, then we will need a human, and we will need a heart.

I like to ask everybody what kind of characters are trending at present. Superheroes come up pretty quick, the protagonists of the Marvel Universe or whatever muscle-bound action series. I ask what those characters are like, brave being the adjective I’m waiting for. Because they are brave, aren’t they? Fearless even. “So if we were to create our own story right here, right now,” I tell the class, “we’re going to need one of you to be our fearless MC. So let me ask, on a scale of one to 10, how brave are you? 10 means you’re utterly courageous, one means you’re terrified of your own shadow. Who here would grade themselves as a five or higher?” 

A handful of hands go halfway up, to which I say, “OK. Great. You are all disqualified. Truth is, I am not fond of fearless protagonists. They give me nothing to worry about. Everyone knows Iron Man will eventually shoot a missile out of his elbow and everything will be OK. I prefer stories where I am not at all certain the main character will survive. So if you are brave, congratulations, but we can’t use you. Everyone else, I have two more questions. First, have you ever been scared of the dark?” 

A few hands go up very, very slowly. 

“Excellent. Final question. Do any of you have a sweet tooth, a fondness for      chocolate or candy or, um, donuts?” 

Typically just two or three hands remain and from these I’ll select the first person to make eye contact. Let’s call her Cate, after Cate Kennedy, the writer I first watched stage a demo like this one. Pulling out a chair from the long table in the middle of the circle, I say, “What do you say, Cate? Ready to save the entire galaxy?” 

Call this Cate’s gateway moment. To become our main character, she must choose to stand and take that first step, leaving one seat behind to take another. 

“Our story,” I continue, “like all stories, begins and ends with character. Character is the answer to what makes a work of fiction truly literary. William Faulkner says in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech that there is only one story worth telling, and it is the story of the human heart in conflict with itself. That is what all lasting stories are all about. So if we want to write a real story in class today, then we will need a human, and we will need a heart.” 

I then thank Cate for being our organ donor.

What do we know about Cate so far? Not a whole lot actually. The most important thing we know is that she’s easily scared, especially of the dark. Here one recalls the advice of Kurt Vonnegut, who said it is crucial to care deeply about your characters, but that you must then do terrible things to them—that way, we’ll get to watch them transform. 

“How does that sound to you, Cate?” I ask. 

Cate, whoever she is, will always say, “Very bad.”

I then reach into my bag of tricks and begin rummaging around. “If a character is afraid of the dark,” I say over my shoulder, “where should an author put them?”

“In the dark,” someone always darkly cheers. 

I produce a blindfold. “Sorry, Cate.”

While Cate agreeably dons a black bandana, I point out that this is the way for all characters. “They can never see what’s in front of their faces. They’re always oblivious to the forces aligned against them. So our Cate here is scared of the dark she’s stuck in.      What else do we know about her? Other than her terror of unlit places, there is one thing. I happen to know that Cate adores donuts, is in fact obsessed with them. There is an elaborate backstory involving formative experiences about why this is. For now, suffice it to say that the single thing Cate longs for more than anything else in this world is a donut! And look what I happen to have here. . . .”

I withdraw a chocolate-covered Krispy Kreme from my bag and walk this over to blindfolded Cate. We are now talking about the next element on our list.

Desire

Someone wants something but can’t easily get it.

Consider this a synonym for wanting, needing, chasing, coveting, the longing to fulfill any lack. By whatever name, Cate craves a donut. At present, Cate cannot see the donut she craves, but she knows it’s there. This is always the case. A character is aware of the existence of the object of their desire out in the world. She’s heard songs about it. She’s seen photographs in glossy magazines. Maybe she’s caught a whiff on their walk home from work, slowing down outside Ye Olde Donut Shoppe, watching beautiful couples take slow-motion bites as she smooshes her nose to the window. Cate desires a donut of her own.

I then ceremoniously place the paper-plated dessert at the far end of the table. “Let me tell you all a story,” I say, “and then you can tell me if it is good or if it stinks. Ready? Once upon a time, there was a character named Cate, who really wanted a donut. So she ate one. The end. Good story or lame? Obviously awful. But why? Here we’re getting into the latter half of my bumper sticker definition. Someone wants something but can’t easily get it. The can’t easily get it part marks the introduction of time. By separating the character from the object of her desire, other things can rush in to fill the gap. What kind of things? That’s the next element on our list.”

Obstacles

I step back and rub my chin. “Is anybody actually worried yet?” I ask.

Obstacles are what come between our character and the object of her desire. Have you ever built an obstacle course, the kind kids make on summer afternoons and then charge into on bikes or skateboards or pilfered shopping carts? The same thrill-seeking logic applies to stories. Seeking maximum fun, children intuitively understand how to place jumps, ramps, sprinklers, garbage cans, broken bottles, flaming puddles of gasoline, and the youngest members of their gang all along the runway. Any bubble gum chomping ragamuffin can tell you it’s the obstacles, not the finish line, that make it fun. 

“So what obstacles separate Cate from her donut?” I ask. Someone will say the blindfold. Someone else will say the table. Somebody will say the other desks and chairs I placed haphazardly around the inner circle. On we go like this until we run out of stuff. “That’s bad,” I say. “We need more obstacles.”

I uncap my water bottle and place it at the table’s edge. I move another desk closer to Cate’s. I throw a backpack on the floor and unhinge a stapler and leave it muzzle up. That tends to get a nervous giggle. Then I step back and rub my chin. “Is anybody actually worried yet?” I ask.

Cate is always the only one to say, “Yes!” which gets a laugh. 

I laugh too. Because I know what’s coming. This is my favorite part. I shake my head and say, “I dunno. Maybe it’s because I read too much, but I’m just not easily worried. I want to worry more about Cate.” I pretend to think about this, then say, “Wait. I’ve got an idea.”

Back to my bag of tricks I go. “Nobody say anything,” I whisper, rooting around. After drawing the moment out, I withdraw something and slowly turn to face the class.

Someone says, “Oh no.”

Slowly I walk around the inside of the circle, letting everyone get a good look at the thing in my hands. Gasps and wisecracks abound. Cate, of course, can hear it all perfectly.

It’s a rat trap.

“Does everyone know what this is?” I ask. When everyone nods, I explain how I bought this device when living in a basement apartment and having a big problem with . . . you know. “And I’ve got to say, it works like a charm. The whole head just comes . . .” and I mime my head flying off.

Placing the trap between my knees, I struggle to pull the lever back, fumbling to lock it down with the clasp. When done, I hold it out at arm’s length. “The device is now engaged,” I say gravidly, then walk over and place it right beside the donut.

I don’t need to ask if anybody is worried yet. They are. It’s because we’ve arrived at the next concept on our list.

Stakes

We have to care what happens, one way or the other.

“Everybody feel how stuff just got real? That’s the feeling of stakes going up. In a good story, something must always be at stake. In ours, if Cate makes the wrong move, she will not only not get the donut. She will lose a limb, I will be fired and probably prosecuted, and the rest of you will at the very least feel very bad for just sitting around laughing while I staged this crazy operation. This is what I mean when I say stakes. We have to care what happens, one way or the other. Stakes are how you as an author convince readers that your story matters.” 

Convincing readers of anything is one of the great challenges of storytelling. Writers not only must think about the material in their hands—i.e. their characters and sentences and setting and so forth—they must also consider what’s going on inside their readers’ heads. This brings us to the next element on our list.

Dramatic Irony

Call it oh-shit-ness, a technical term. It’s a physical sensation, like a burning on the back of your neck.

Because school-learning so often emphasizes what is thought about rather than what is felt, I always try to shift focus to the body. I’ll ask the class, “Know that feeling you got in your chest the moment I took the thing out of my bag? That’s dramatic irony. Call it oh-shit-ness, a technical term. It’s a physical sensation, like a burning on the back of your neck. Now take a moment to ask yourself what causes that feeling. Isn’t it the blindfold? Here’s proof. Imagine a demonstration identical to this one in every way, minus that. The point would be the same. Everyone in the room would understand as much and nod along. But no one, I argue, would feel that point. There would be zero oh-shit-ness. The blindfold is what makes the example felt. The blindfold makes the lesson not just an idea, but an experience. Why? I’ll tell you. It’s because you know something that Cate does not. That’s dramatic irony. Dramatic irony is anytime the reader understands something the character does not.”

An oft-cited example of this concept comes from Alfred Hitchcock, who describes a backroom in which a bunch of gangster types are playing cards. They’re smoking cigars while talking in gangster voices about gangster interests. The camera pans across their faces before dropping beneath the table to reveal a hidden bomb. The gangsters obviously don’t know it’s there. They continue to gamble and crack gangster jokes while, for us, the scene becomes imbued with immense tension. We want to shout what we know as these gangsters make plans for a tomorrow we’re sure they’ll never see. That’s dramatic irony, the power of privileged information combined with a powerlessness to communicate. 

“It is the same for us right now,” I tell the class. “We all know precisely what danger Cate is in, while Cate does not. In a very real neurological sense, our brains are locked into a conflict with themselves. One selfish part of us knows we are perfectly safe, while another empathetic part—the part constantly predicting what people around us are feeling—is going bananas, sounding alarms, screaming bloody murder. Our feeling of oh-shit-ness comes from subconsciously believing that we are in two places at once. We are simultaneously ourselves and Cate, because we know how easily it could have been us up there instead of her. We simultaneously know about the you-know-what and also do not know. That wildly ambivalent sensation comes from dramatic irony, a tried-and-true method for keeping your reader flipping pages.”

At this point I assure the class we are getting very close to actually watching our story unfold. Next up:

Allies & Enemies

Good guys always wear a white hat, while bad guys wear black.

At this point I sometimes mention the first season of the HBO show Westworld. For those unfamiliar with the show, it’s basically Jurassic Park (also by Michael Crichton), except instead of dinosaurs, you’ve got cowboy robots. Don’t worry, it’s smarter than it sounds. At its best, the show builds upon the insight that our identities are the result of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Like Jurassic Park, rich visitors pay big bucks to enter the wild west fantasy park of Westworld where they get to kill and/or kiss as many cowboy robots as they want without risking bodily harm, venereal disease, or incarceration for mass murder. What could possibly go wrong? 

The part of Westworld most relevant to this demonstration involves costumes. Before guests enter the park proper, they must suit up. Everyone is dealt their choice of six shooter, boots, spurs, chaps, bandana, etc. The very last item they select is the most important. Their hat. Anyone who has ever seen a spaghetti western knows how easy it is to tell the good guys from the bad. Good guys always wear a white hat, while bad guys wear black. 

So here, too, in Cate’s world, we need white hats, and we need black ones. All stories have this dynamic, even stories about solo adventurers stranded on desert islands. No protagonist can survive their journey alone. They need help. Problem is they’re blindfolded and cannot see the hats of their supporting cast. Therein lies another classic source of dramatic irony. Anyone in the audience of Othello knows Iago rocks a black beret even though no one else on stage can see it. 

“So here we are, about to begin our story starring Cate,” I tell my class. “She needs help though. She needs white hats. Raise your hand if you hope Cate makes it out of this mess more or less OK. Who here wants to see Cate eat a donut?” 

A few hands will go up, and I will pick three from different parts of the room. When the story starts, their job is to advise Cate on how to safely reach her goal.

Then I say, “Our story also needs black hats. Remember, deep down, we want to worry. So let me ask you this: who wants to see this situation go totally sideways?”

A few devilish smiles precede raised hands, and I pick three of them from different parts of the room and say, “Once the story starts, your job is to give Cate the worst advice possible.”

We are almost ready to start. There’s just one final element to discuss.

The Ticking Clock

At this point, I take out my phone, set a timer for four minutes . . .

The ticking clock is an often-overlooked device. It’s what prevents the story from going on forever. The ticking clock is a deadline that compresses all the action down into the narrowest possible window. Sometimes the ticking clock is literally a ticking clock, as it is on Hitchcock’s bomb. More often though, it’s just an impending event. Prom is only two weeks away. . . . My big job interview is tomorrow at noon. . . . An army of the dead is marching down out of the frozen north and will get here in a month, etc. . . . All of these are ticking clocks, i.e. a promise to the reader that interesting action is imminent.

At this point, I take out my phone, set a timer for four minutes, and place it on the overhead projector, zooming in all the way. Once I hit start, 4:00 turns into 3:59, and I say, “If Cate neither gets the donut nor loses a finger, nobody in this room gets attendance points for today. Now our story begins. White hats, black hats, tell Cate what to do. Go.”

Things get real loud real quick.

Does the water bottle get knocked over? 50/50. Are the black hats louder than the white hats? Almost always. This is the part of the demonstration I need to warn nearby teachers about. I used to allow the entire room to shout, but that broke windows. Even with just six voices hollering at once, it’s plenty tense enough. 

After a whole lot of left, no right, no turn around, no stop, more laughing, more flailing, Cate blindly zeros in on the donut and also the rat trap, her hand inches away when the most deafening wails herald our story’s climax, the moment Cate finally grabs hold of her goal. I am standing by to instantaneously yank the blindfold off. 

We all clap and clap and clap and clap.

I have two more donuts hidden in the front of the room, which I now present to the most vocal white hat and most devious black hat. While everyone catches their breath, I recap what we just talked about.

• CHARACTER is where it all starts. We don’t need to know everything about our character, just a few broader strokes: maybe what they look like, how they act, what scares them, and most definitely what they want.
• DESIRE is what they want. In Cate’s case, a donut. This is what compels the character to embark on the plot of the story.
• OBSTACLES are what transform a few facts into a storyline. They constitute the obstacle-course the character will have to negotiate in order to attain the object of their desire. Without obstacles, the character would already have what they want and there would be no story.
• STAKES are what make the story feel real. Stakes are what make the story interesting. Stakes are a wager, are skin in the game. Stakes are potential losses that counterbalance intended gains.
• DRAMATIC IRONY is whenever the reader knows something that the character does not. This is what gives the reader thrills and tears them in two inside. Faulkner said all literature is about the human heart in conflict with itself. Dramatic irony makes the reader feel this conflict, whether they like it or not. 
• ALLIES & ENEMIES are in every story, even stories about a guy alone in a space station. Trouble is, the main character might not always know which is which. How to tell the difference? They have to listen. 
• THE TICKING CLOCK is what forces the action and manages reader expectations. It can be a literal numeral countdown or just an event on the horizon. The ticking clock is a promise to the reader that something cool is going to happen sooner rather than later.

---

When I first staged the Donut Demo, this was the moment I expected everyone to ask, “Wait, Dan, is that rat trap, like, really real?” 

Surprisingly, this almost never happens. Out of some 30 demonstrations to date, only twice has this question been raised. Apparently, people want to believe the danger is real. On the two occasions someone actually asked, my response was, “What do you think?” to which they replied that it seemed unlikely I would risk my entire career just to make a simple point about storytelling. Both times I found it laugh-out-loud-able that “my career” was the thing being risked. That’s when I nodded and added one more element to our list.

Suspension of Disbelief

Desire is not just the ultimate storytelling hack, it’s the key to human nature.

Most people are familiar with this concept, the willingness to ignore certain questions in order to allow a story to proceed. Children pretending to have a tea party do not criticize the invisibility of their cups. They say, “Yum, this tea is the perfect temperature!”      

Of course, everybody at least suspects the rat trap is not real. Truth is, the trap is real, it’s just not really set. A switch must be flipped to engage the spring, which I refrain from flipping as I pretend that the act of setting it requires every muscle in my body. Here’s a funny thing though: I know better than anyone that the trap is not actually set and that Cate is never in any real danger. Why then does my heart pound every time a blindfolded student waves her hand precariously close to the trap? I feel genuine physical and psychological fear in those moments. The fact is, we want to believe the trap is real. Why? I suspect because we feel that we will learn something if we play along. Perhaps. The best storytellers must also be psychologists—this I am convinced of every day.  

Which brings me to my final point, one about desire. From an essay in English 101 to someone’s MFA thesis to novel number three, this is where many stories fail. All writers, even beginners, know how important character is, how important setting is, how important dialogue is, how important sentences are, without placing that all-important emphasis on desire. Desire is not just the ultimate storytelling hack, it’s the key to human nature. 

Whenever I think about the concept of desire, I think about the Four Noble Truths. The first truth is suffering. To live is to suffer, it goes. The second truth is that the cause of suffering is our favorite D-word. Desire, the longing to fill any lack. “If only I had this one thing,” our character says, “I will be whole again, I will stop suffering, I will be happy.” 

Obviously, my demonstration with a blindfold and a donut is an over-simplification. Most stories, let alone real life, involve goals much more complex than a deep-fried dessert ring. But then again, maybe not. In 2019, NASA published the first high-resolution photographs of a black hole some 55 million light years away, which seem to confirm what some mathematical astrophysicists had hypothesized for years—that the actual shape of a black hole is a torus, a geometric form created by revolving a circle in three-dimensional space around a coplanar axis. In other words, black holes are donut-shaped. And every single galaxy revolves around one. Maybe this is why I find donuts such a fitting symbol of desire.

By this point, Cate, whoever she is, has already eaten the hard-earned object of her desire, so I draw a new one on the board. “Tell me,” I ask the class, pointing, “what’s in the middle of a donut?”

After a while, someone says, “Nothing?”

“That’s right. Nothing. Or rather, no thing. As far as character is concerned, all objects of desire are donuts. Have you ever wanted something really bad, then gotten it, only to realize it’s not that important after all, that it is in fact trivial or even a little wrong? All material goals have this in common, this inability to last. Because what is a donut, after all? Deep fried sugar and flour. Delicious on occasion, but by no means wholesome. All material goals are the same, in stories and in life. They have a hole in their middle. All desire is empty at its core. For every material goal, there is a deeper immaterial one. Every yearning has an intangible heart, a profound center that the sugary shell never touches. That’s why so many stories end in this way, with the hero finally achieving her goal only to realize that no, that’s not what she truly wanted, that she has been seeking something far deeper all along.” The middle of the donut is the door every author must exit through at the end of the demonstration, an acknowledgment of the limitations of so-called story elements and of analysis in general. All great stories lead back to this space and a return to no-thing-ness. But like every kid with a bike and a hill and a Saturday afternoon as long as forever, the fun always comes from the obstacles. This is how writers know: everybody wants a donut.

Featured photo by DS stories from Pexels.