Essence vs Identity

Million Dollar Outlines quotes Michael Hauge as saying "he has never seen a movie or read a book that worked where "the question of the protagonist's identity" doesn't com up. In short, questions like 'Who am I?', 'What am I?', and 'Why am I this way?' are at the core of every great work."
From another source, I heard this note from a Hauge seminar: In the beginning of most successful films, you see the protagonist in his everyday Identity, just fitting in, going about their regular life. Wesley (Princess Bride) is a farm boy; Korben Dallas (Fifth Element is a cab driver; Thomas Anderson (Matrix) is a programmer; James Edwards (Men in Black) is a cop. And then something happens--they meet someone, or learn something, which speaks to his Essence. At that point, the protagonist has to make a decision: is he going to hide within his Identity, or show his Essence? The Identity is safe, but unfulfilled; the Essence is unsafe, but fulfilled.
What conflicts arise because the protagonist, or other characters, doubt him, and what must he do to prove he is worthy to hold the role he must take?

Seeing a ghost

It can be quite a shock, when you see a ghost.
 I was standing at my window, peering out through the lace of first frost. Moonlight dappled the streets. I could get glimpses of the Other World, and the shadows of people moving like a silent river below me. Watching them flow, I noticed one young woman, translucent. She turned one way, hesitated, turned around, stumbled a few steps, stopped, looked up. I imagined I could see her tears; a trick of the moonlight. It felt as if she were looking at me, but of course she wasn't; my window was dark and she couldn't see through it. I wished I could go out and do something to help her--but what? I could offer guidance or comfort, but she wouldn't be able to hear me. So, unable to help, I simply watched. Eventually she was carried away on the tide of moving souls, and I lost track of her.
 There were others out there, with the passions of their life showing strongly, that I could pick them out of the masses. Raging or pained or staggering drunk or bouncing giddy with excitement or grieving. This woman having loveless sex with strangers out of desperate loneliness. That man, worn and lined by care, but forgetting it as he cheered for his team. The teenage girl glowing with first love. The warrior, eyes dark and wary. The new pilot, exultant with first flight. The pretty, unhappy woman in a slave collar. The single mother too proud to ask for help. All of them beyond my ability to touch, to hear, to reach.
 In a flash of realization, I understood that the people I saw were living; that I was the one who was silent and distant. I looked at my reflection, and saw.
It can be quite a shock, when you see a ghost.

Niven's Fifth Law

"If you've nothing to say, say it any way you like. Stylistic innovations, contorted story lines or none, exotic or genderless pronouns, internal inconsistencies, the recipe for preparing your lover as a cannibal banquet: feel free. 
If what you have to say is important and/or difficult to follow, use the simplest language possible. If the reader doesn't get it then, let it not be your fault."

Writing plan

After reading innumerable books on plot, character, how to put together a story, and all that, I've come up with this plan:

• Determine the general setting--"space opera", "sword and sorcery"
• Determine the "Hell Yeah" moment--the moment at which, if your novel becomes a movie, everyone in the theater will cheer. Example: the outmatched hero suddenly turns out to have powerful allies
• Decide why this needs to happen right now, rather than when we're in a better position. 
• Work out who does this to whom. Examples: a lone smuggler to the police fleet; a dispossessed king to an orcish army. NOTE: the do-er has to be the hero, not some deus ex machina or other third party.
• Work out the details of why the bad guy was trying to do this. Example: stop the smuggler from getting news out; capture the city where he thinks the McGuffin is.
• Work out how the hero gets to be in a position to pull off this stunt. Examples: he's found the barbarian fleet himself; he's the king who inherited an oath from the ghosts.
• And you end up with Serenity leading the Reavers into the Alliance fleet, or the Galaxyquest ship drags the mines into the Big Bad ship, or Aragorn leaps out of the corsair ship and the ghost army materializes before the orcs

Examples of "hell yeah" moments:

• Lone hero with bomb gets close and destroys monster. Star Wars, Monster Hunter International, A Hymn Before Battle
• Types of Hell Yes moments
• More examples from TV Tropes

Frank Chadwick: On Villains

From the Space 1889 blog. The summary is:

• What does the villain want?
• What does he have to do to get what he wants?
• Why are the villain's actions so catastrophic that the hero must stop him at all costs?

"This is a tough one, but it becomes the heart of the story. It is the essence of the story's conflict and ultimately separates the hero from the villain. Since it's the heart of the novel, how big the conflict is determines the scope of the novel itself. If what's at stake is the hero's life, okay. We understand a person wants to survive in the face of a deadly threat, but that doesn't make them a hero, does it? That's not that big a story. Does the villain threaten other folks we care about? Bigger story. Does the villain threaten a way of life? Bigger story still. Is justice on the line? Is truth on the line? Will something of value to mankind be lost forever? These are bigger issues, and make the story itself bigger."

• It has to make sense (no "I want to destroy ze World!" unless you have somewhere else to go)

Ringo's Rules

Three pieces of writing advice.

1. All characters should have a character trait.
2. There should be a sensory word on every page.
3. In an adventure/thriller story, there should be a crisis every thousand words.

If you actually manage all three, you're a cross between Lois Bujold, Poul Anderson and David Drake.

Vonnegut's rules for writing

From Thought Capital (hat tip: TomB), here are Vonnegut's rules:

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.