Friday Night Lights and plotting

I love fantasy, but that doesn't mean I can't also love a show set in a very ordinary town with characters who never deal with big problems like the world coming to an end, international spy rings, or murder investigations. One of the things I think Friday Night Lights does better than any series I can think of is plotting by giving characters exactly what they want and seeing what happens when they get it, and at the same time giving characters the thing they fear the most and seeing how they deal with that.

Jason Street is the star quarterback and ends up getting paralyzed in the first episode. You think that's bad? What makes it a lot worse is that then his girlfriend sleeps with his best friend. And he has to decide what he is going to do. Every day of his life, he has to decide if he is going to accept his disability or not, if he is going to forgive or not, if he is going to go back to coaching the team that he once ruled or not.

Eric Taylor, the high school football coach, wins the state championship against all odds in the first season. We all cheer for him. And then? Life goes on. His players grow up and leave. When I first started watching the show, I was afraid that he was always going to win, but no, he doesn't. He loses sometimes, too, or almost wins and then has to deal with that. He has ordinary problems like team members who mess up. Then he ends up getting the dream job, coaching in college. He goes and does that. But what happens? The people around him pay the price for this choice, and he eventually decides it isn't worth it. Then just when you think all things are going well, this character ends up with what he fears the most. He gets pushed out of his beloved job and forced to coach a hopeless team. He is angry and he makes some terrible mistakes. But his character's plot isn't dealing with surprise twin sisters like a soap opera. It's just dealing with ordinary problems in a realistic and incredibly well written way.

Tami Taylor has only wanted to be a stay at home mom, it seems. But she's only blessed with one daughter and once that daughter is in high school, she becomes a guidance counselor. Then she gets offered her dream job, being a principal. Only what happens when she gets that dream job is that it isn't what she thinks it will be. She has to deal with very ordinary political problems and there is fall-out. I love how she makes choices and lives with the consequences. I love how she ends up moving on and being a counselor at another school.

Vince Taylor is a troubled kid whose father is in jail. When his father gets out of jail, this could be either what Vince most wants or what he most fears. It is both at the same time. Vince gets to have his father cheering for him, and then there are terrible consequences for that. He also gets to see what happens when his father ruins things for him by trying to arrange his life the wrong way.

Tim Riggins is a good old boy, always getting into trouble and then facing the consequences. I really loved the plot twist where he ends up getting a scholarship to play college ball, a dream for many of the other characters in the show. His brother gets in his face and tells him that he has an obligation to the family to go to college. But for Tim, this dream is a nightmare. He gives it up and he ends up in jail because of it. But it's so real to his character, every step he takes. He doesn't change overnight into a hero. He does become a better person bit by bit.

One of my favorite plot lines was the romance between Landry and Tyra. He is the geeky smart band boy who has no chance of being with hot girl Tyra. But then there is a chance. But it doesn't last. I suppose this was a bit of a soap opera, but it was a perfect description of letting a character get what he wants and then seeing how it doesn't turn out quite right. No apocalyptic nuclear explosions necessary, no fairy godmothers coming in to grant wishes. Just ordinary people with very ordinary motives who the writers are very careful never to twist or turn into cheesy moments.

And of course, the romance between Matt and Julie I loved, too. My favorite scene in the entire series is probably the scene where Julie and Tami sit down to discuss the consequences for her having sex with her boyfriend. Julie is expecting a punishment, but in the end, it turns out the discussion is itself the punishment. I made my teenage daughter watch this scene with me, though they haven't watched the rest of the show. It is so perfect written. The mom doesn't have to be over the top angry. She doesn't have to be handing out condoms. She doesn't know what the right thing to do is, but she does the best she can, and she makes her daughter talk to her about the hard stuff. Julie and Matt have all the problems you would think would happen when you are high school sweethearts. Sometimes it looks impossible for them to be happy, with Matt's father dying and his grandmother with Alzheimer's. There's no miracle cure. Matt has to pick out his father's casket and he has to make choices about money even then. I just love the ordinariness of these choices, which are so pitch perfectly presented.

If you want a workbook on how to plot a contemporary novel, you could do worse than spend 50 hours watching the entirety of the 5 seasons of Friday Night Lights. No cheap tricks, just giving characters what they most want and what they most fear, step by step. And the great thing is, as characters change and grow, they have new things they want which you can take away from them, and new things that you can give them to make them happy for just a moment.