Plot construction...

The framework goes up before the house!

If you have most or all of the whole plot in mind already, it's time to get down to brass tacks. Let's look at how to write your construction blueprint. With that done, you're ready to build the novel.

When a plot is giving trouble, fall back on the basics: sit at the feet of master fictioneers and shamelessly pick their brains. Need help to plot the seemingly unplottable?! Here's an overview of the subject. With this crow's-eye-view, you'll know where to head next.

Do you have part of the plot, say, the middle? The beginning is still vague, and you know you need a fully-rounded, satisfying ending. (I'm going to look at why the ending is by far the most important part of a work of fiction.) Let's take a look at the structure of a good novel — the system behind how to write something so compelling, your reader can't stop turning pages, and at the end is hungry four your next book: it's all about plot development. Stay with me ... I'm going there next.

Do you have the beginning and the middle, but the ending is proving elusive? Time to do a little creative brainstorming, using tried and proven models that have worked for writers for years. We'll take the existing models, tear them apart right back to their constituent bricks, and build something new: How to write the Big Finish.

Or, do you have a fantastic book idea that needs to 'gel' into a plot? In another post I'll talk about how to write a story outline, or timeline. Tap into this way of working, and an afternoon invested now can save you a week of reworking later.

With the plot tied down fast, the next step is to consider creating characters, of developing the characters that have already taken shape in your imagination. You'll want to write characters so real, they seem to have lives of their own, and they'll haunt your readers. There are no graven-in-gold rules about how to write great characters, but a number of techniques are at your fingertips, and all are extremely effective. Here's Character Creation 101 ... How to write the characters readers love — and love to hate!

Create unforgettable characters
Create a character: the hero
Create a character: the villain
What's in a character's name?

And with the major characters mapped out, the construction blueprint can be called done. The time has come to explore your creativity, flex your writer's muscles, see what you can do. Set your own 'ground rules' and stick to them.

For example, try to write every day, even if it's only 200 words (which would be around half a page of a paperback with decently-set type, or almost a full page of a paperback where the type is enormous and the lines are almost double spaced ... which is how publishers take a very short book and make it look much larger. All that wasted paper between the lines is known as 'white space' ... what a crass waste of trees).


Now, let's take a look at some of the most fundamental nuts and bolts of how to write. It starts with getting ideas and words onto paper, or into the computer, so that they can be pushed, pulled, shoved, culled, and otherwise pounded into shape!

Only you know how much you know, and how much you need to learn. I'm going to answer dozen of the most-asked questions, which clear answers, which will help you skim over sticky patches. (Grab a fresh coffee and take a few minutes to read through them; you might be surprised. The industry keeps changing.)

Turn page to...
Q&A: 'How to write ... what?!' 12 Most-asked Questions!

Plot ideas --

Where in the world do they come from?

Most of the time, plot ideas pop right out of a writer's imagination, and many writers are usually inundated with these ideas. They get far more than can even be jotted down, much less incorporated into storylines. However, occasionally a writer does find him- or herself in a drought, and then it's important to know how to deliberately generate fresh plot ideas.

The drought usually comes on when a writer must turn in a piece of work, because it's all a matter of money. Let's say you're a working writer selling scripts for TV shows. Working in the US, you'll be so well paid, you'll be able to live comfortably on two or three sales in a year. Working in Australia, the pay is a lot more meager, which means you must sell a lot more scripts.

Each script is built on a core plot idea, and running dry of fresh concepts when you absolutely, positively must produce a piece of work, is a writer's concept of the classic bad hair day. So, most writers have their own system for generating fresh ideas, and we'll look at a range of them on this page.

Does a Random Plot Generator actually exist?

Unfortunately ... yes, there is such a thing. You can actually buy software which gives you what are known as 'prompts,' and by filling in the blanks you'll always come up with some kind of a plot. The question remains, is a story based on a plot idea, or a bunch of plot ideas generated this way, worth writing? This is question, you'll have to answer for yourself.

Let's look at how the generator works. Save your money. There is absolutely nothing in this system which can't be achieved with a notebook and pencil. The prompts are very like the 'when, whom where, why' model we set in motion on the What is a plot? page. Refresh your memory, if you need to. Then ... Here are the prompts:

Create a hero.
(Young guy, older guy? Tall, short? Walks with a limp due to old injury? European, Afro-American, Native? Aussie accent? Good looking, scar-faced after the old injury? Bad tempered, sweet tempered? Foul mouthed? Snazzy dresser, or grunge guy? Rocker, rapper, or violinist? College educated or dropout? Brave, or scared silly? Straight, bi or gay? Tee-total, drinking problem, drug problem? Smoker, or non-? Republican, Democrat, or couldn't care less? Religious, spiritual, or atheist? Intelligent or a bit dim? A son, a father, a brother, a nephew?)

Create a villain.
(Go through the exact same process to design this guy as you did to design the hero.)

Set the time frame.
(Ancient Greece, Rome or Egypt? American Civil War? Queen Elizabeth I and Francis Drake? Wars of the Roses? The Third Crusade? The American War of Independence? The Rum Rebellion? Columbus, or Captain Cook? World War I, or II? The Swingin' Sixties? The Cold War? Indiana Jones era? Contemporary? Futuristic...?)

Set the location.
(City or country? Coastal or mountains? Jungle or snow fields? Forest or farmland? Rainforest or desert? Hotel, farmhouse, apartment block, horse property, beachfront house, decaying mansion, brand-new home, old church, creepy old house?)

Create a pivotal event to set a story moving.
(A murder. Plane crash. Car crash. Abduction. Theft. Divorce. Marriage. Birth of a child. Death in the family. Funeral. Reading of a will. Outbreak of war. Arrival of strangers. Hellfire sermon causes social unrest. Political turmoil agitates people. Bushfire. Arson -- school burns down, or church, or mansion. Mine cave-in. Baby down the well. Thoroughbred stallion escapes. Pet dog runs away. Sudden unemployment. Sudden employment. Highway coming through. Railway coming through. Ship sinks. Ship launches. Business bankrupts. Business opens ...)

Set the mood and feel for the piece.
(Light comedy. Grand tragedy. Adventure. Romance. Slapstick. Mystery. Tear-jerker. Spooky. Thriller. Chiller. NOTE: the genre is not important here. Science fiction can also be comedy (Ice Pirates), westerns can be slapstick (Cactus Jack). What you're defining here is the 'mood' for your piece. In other words, the vein in which you'll write it: will you be trying to make your readers laugh, or cry?)

Each of those plot ideas, or 'parameters,' can be written on something like a business card blank. You can toss them in a shoe box and pull one out at random. If you have one box each for hero, villain, time frame, location, and pivotal event, a story will certainly begin appear. Using the above method, it's quite easy to find your way to Luke Skywalker standing on the desert surface of Tatooine, chafing at his uncle's demand that he stay on the farm. It could be a kid on a farm in Kansas in the great drought, wanting to join the Air Force ... same plot idea. (Of course, it's what you DO with the plot idea that makes for a good story, a boring story, or just plain plagiarism!)

By now you have at least one plot idea, and probably more than one. You can always come up with a plot this way, but we'd be remiss if we didn't include a caveat: If you don't apply your own imagination and creativity, such plots are artificial, fake, cardboard. You can write them, but the result — without the input of individual creativity — will lack the dynamism that makes a great novel. The result will be something like the pulp westerns which were churned out by the thousands, with stock situations and characters.

Give it a shot — it makes an interesting game for a rainy afternoon! But don't come to rely on this for your plot ideas. There are better ways...


Plot ideas, and how writers spark them

All writers have different methods, and here are some of the best. They're not going to cost a dime, and you can try any or all of them for the 'best fit.'

Mythology is a rich source of plot ideas. Every story idea one can imagine is to be found in the legends of Greece, Egypt, the Norse world, and China. An encyclopedia of mythology (the Larousse is excellent) is a great place to start. Inspiration abounds on every page. The Bible is a rich source of Hebrew mythology, and there are some great plot ideas among those pages ... Hollywood clearly thought so, too!

Similarly to paying attention to Mythology, you can also look at the classics. The Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid. These works are incredibly ancient, and dwell in a 'twilight zone' between fact and fable. Writers like Homer and Virgil explored every possible permutation of the human condition. Rest assured, there's nothing modern writers can dream of that wasn't written in antiquity. And these works are public domain. People will surely notice if you lift plot ideas right out of, say, The Illiad; but if those ideas were handled magnificently, you're more likely to be applauded than censured.

History is the richest source of ideas one could dream of. During several thousand years, humans have said and done virtually everything that can be said and done. The exploits of Captain Cook, or Columbus, are projected into the future and morph into Star Trek. Tales of the Black Death are redressed as stories like Outbreak, a thriller set in the contemporary age. The gradual collapse of the Roman Empire is, right now, being echoed in the demise of much of what we have taken for granted of Western civilization. If you want massive plot ideas, for massive novels ... look to history.

Like Homer and Virgil, Shakespeare spent an entire career examining the human condition. The twists and turns of Shakespearean drama, and the plot ideas at the core of each, are well worth a look. The forces driving characters like Macbeth and Hamlet are still driving human beings today; they just drive us in slightly different directions, to achieve the same ends. (For example, Lady Macbeth is less than likely to exhort her husband, who is second in command of a corporate empire, to murder the CEO at their house party. She's more likely to plot with him to assassinate the CEO's character and reputation, making him resign and maybe suicide ... leaving Macbeth to assume the corporate crown. Same plot idea ... very different story.)

So --

How do you generate fresh plot ideas when you're absolutely, utterly blank?

There's a game I enjoy, and anyone can play: watch the trailers for movies you've never seen ... just leave the sound turned off. The trailer becomes a rapid-fire sequence of almost-related images and concepts (ie., plot ideas hammered at you, one after another, to get you to drop fourteen bucks on a ticket!) and the human mind, which has a desperate need to make sense out of chaos, will race, trying to fill in the blanks. Your mind will create connections, spin stories, to make the images and ideas relate. Whole scenarios will generate themselves before your mind's eye.

You can do something along the same lines with movie stills. A picture is actually worth closer to a million words, if you ever start backstorying what your mind thinks it sees in a movie still. I recommend stills over family snapshots, because it would be the weird family album that boasted shots of people racing around on superbikes, being pursued by police cars, jumping horses over fallen trees, hanging out at creepy old houses on the moor, crashing airplanes into tropical islands, and so on. Each photo is not just a couple of plot ideas, but about a hundred of them — so long as you haven't seen the movie! Of course, if you have, all you see is Harrison Ford hauling old pontoons over a waterfall in Six Days, Seven Nights. So search the web till you find a stash of stills from movies you never saw, and probably have no intention of seeing. And let your imagination rip.

Many more ways to find a new plot idea are out there: daydreams, falling in love with someone else's characters and having them spur your own imagination, flashes of intuition ... and old fashioned hard work. The hard work idea is the least appealing, but we can inject a little fun into this, too. Just as Mel Keegan uses images to literally kickstart the mind's ability to weave stories, if you're not 'visually inclined,' you can use words.

The game could be called, "Give me a killer first line." The challenge is to write the first line of a novel that does not, yet, exist ... and make the first line so outrageous that the rest of the book almost explodes into being, given the image created by that first line. (Incidentally, publishers, editors, agent and critics love these first lines; they read them all too seldom.)

All right, let's pick up the challenge. Let's scare up fresh plot ideas. I'll give you a half dozen first lines ... then you're on your own!

1. I came to the village of Kintyre to paint a portrait, and I stayed to marry two men.
2. His blood was warm on my hands, looking black in the near-darkness, and the reek of chemical smoke made my head burn.
3. Summer was gone overnight, with a storm that dumped half the Atlantic Ocean into the top paddocks, and Lassiter felt only a dark, consuming relief when the last train pulled out.
4. Like a heartbeat, the drums called out of the high valleys, but mist still wreathed the lowlands, and no glimmer of torchlight was visible.
5. She swore the runes and cards had foretold the man's death, and even Robert, who had spent most of his short life mocking 'fortune telling,' felt a chill in the air around Bradgate's ancient walls.
6. Nothing moved in the shimmering, rust-red landscape, save a few tattered crows that gathered where something had perished in the heat.

The mind always generates images in response to words, and some of the most vivid are conjured when you read poetry. When you want plot ideas, read poetry with an open mind's eye.

The next chapter in this quest for a great book is about plot development. Getting great ideas is the first step, and one of the most important. What you DO with those ideas is what turns basic plot ideas into jewels ... or junk. Two writers could begin with the concept of the kid desperately wanting to get off the farm and join the military, make something of his life. One writer wound up telling Star Wars. The other chased the same idea into a pulp-style novel about womanizing drinking buddies, blood and dismemberment. Both started with the same plot ideas...

Two paths clearly diverged in that forest! One went to Tatooine (and a billion dollars' worth of merchandise), the other landed in a short, pulpy novel with a printrun of a few thousand copies and no reprint value. Can you tell those paths apart, in the gloom of the forest? They're not marked in any way. You have to choose for yourself. Plot ideas are the certainly the start of the process, and join me in the next post in this train of thought, because I'm going to catch a cab down the road to Tatooine!

Fiction writing can be its own reward

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There's no greater escapism than good fiction. Creative writing is the driving force behind major movies, computer games, best-selling novels, comic books, even the best TV commercials. They all tell a story; behind every one is a writer, or team of writers; and all of them begin with an idea.

In the fertile soil of writers' imaginations, idea becomes plot; plot becomes novel; novel becomes movie script; movie becomes spinoff game. From STAR WARS to LORD OF THE RINGS, the process of development is the same — and some of the best Hollywood franchises started life as freelance writing. For example, the cash juggernaut of the PREDATOR movie series. (I'll tell you that story in a post of its own, soon!)

You have The Idea, which is why you're working the puzzle: 'how to write a novel' ...

It's time to choose your jumping-in point. Only you know how much you know, and what you still need to learn. Let's get started by tackling the puzzle one point at a time:

You're inspired to write, needing only the fundamental skills to write a novel, but perhaps you need help with a plot that won't 'gel' ... or to work out the ENDING to your plot, or perhaps the start of your novel, or even with its middle section. These are fundamental challenges. In other words, every writer takes this particular bull by the horns sooner or later, so there's no need for you to re-invent the wheel!

Another fundamental challenge is character creation. Before you even start to write, you meet the necessity to create characters. Some will seem to give birth to themselves; others make you work. You'll need to develop your characters' individual 'voices' — and an often overlooked point it the need to find names for the characters. Any name that comes to mind might not do the job. So, what's in a character name? We're about to take a close-up, personal look: here's Character Creation 101, a five-part series of article posts dealing with the whole field!

• Create unforgettable characters
• Create a character: the hero
• Create a character: the villain
• What's in a character's name?
• Creating characters: know your archetypes from your stereotypes

Then again, perhaps by now you have the plot nailed down, and most of the characters are already alive in your mind. What you need at this point is specific help with the 'writing style' ... or with the fine points of the grammar and punctuation. Or perhaps even with manuscript formatting. These are the 'nuts and bolts' of writing. The building bricks. Delve into our WRITE! segment to hunt down what you need.

Or,

You just need straight answers to specific questions. There's a popular saying just now, that 'information is power.' This has never been more true than today, when the Internet, the advent of ebooks, print on demand publishing, and social networking between many millions of people, make it very possible to author, publish and build a career in freelance writing. Information, then:

• When and how do I get paid for freelance writing?
• Do I need to write short stories before I 'move up' to novel writing?
• Is there a blueprint (or cookbook method) for how to write a novel?
• Do I need to use a computer to write?
• Must I start with freelance writing?
• Do I have to type?
• Do spelling and grammar have to be perfect?
• What are 'elements of style' in fiction writing?
• The novel is finished -- how does editing work?
• How do I proofread my novel?
• Do I have to write several drafts?
• Can I edit my own writing?
• Okay, where do I start to do copy editing?
• Can I get help with editing, should I pay for an editing service?
• What kind of fees to editors charge?
• How much editing is enough — and how much is too much?
• How do I know when I'm ready to submit my novel?
• How do I format a manuscript for submission?
• What do publishers want, or need, from freelance writing?
• Do I need an agent?
• How do I find a reputable literary agency?
• Are ebooks different, at the writing and editing stages?

All excellent questions! Take your cue from the answers, and explore this site. Notice how the content is divided into sections: write — edit — publish — promote, and so on. This blog is always expending, so do bookmark it and visit again.

You can jump in at any point and zero-in on exactly what you need to know. When you're inspired to write, the last thing you need is forty pages to read, to find a snipped of information that puts you on the right track. Let's get you writing again, because momentum is very important. In freelance writing, no boss is there to pressure you. Motivation is only going to come from inside YOU. When you're on a roll, your material seems to 'write itself.'

When hitches slow you down, you have to work back up to that momentum. The faster you can overcome hitches, the more momentum you'll maintain. In fact, this is a key part of the puzzle of how to write a novel — getting 'up to speed' and staying there! The solution is specific information, when and where you need it.

As you explore, you'll also notice that each section section it broken up into bite-sized chunks, which makes it easy to find a specific solution for a specific problem. And like all blogs, this one is searchable: if in doubt, search on it ... or check out the "labels" list, to your left...

Turn page to WRITE! Down to Basics...

What is a plot --?

So, exactly what is plot?

The simplest possible answer is that a plot is a framework on which events hang, like laundry pegged to a line. The events are plot elements, and the line they're pegged to is a timeline. So, what is plot? It's key events suspended in passing time.

Picture it as the scaffolding which goes up before the building. It's the steel or timber structure which is built on the concrete foundation pad of a new house. It won't start looking like a house for a while yet, but without the framework, the house will pretty quickly fall down around your ears!

'What is a plot' is the most fundamental question an aspiring storyteller can ask, and although it seems like (and is) a simple question, the answer can get surprisingly deep. The simplest questions are the best, because they get after the roots of things. When you understand the basics, of art or music, architecture or writing, you don't have to remember them any longer. Well-understood basics become part of who you are.

A plot is much more than a collection of events tagged together to make a sequence. Home videos are a good example of what is a plot ... and what isn't! Imagine you've been given a bundle of disks with scores of files, each with a nonsense name, something along the lines of DVC007625.MPG. The name means nothing. Each clip encapsulates an event, and you can always string them together and make a sequence, but the result is semi-gibberish.

At this point, the factor missing from this sequence of video clips is a story, no matter how simple. A story with a sense of time, which ties events together.

If you had the patience to take these videos and watch them in a jumble, you might start to see patterns. For example, you spotted ten assorted shots of Mom packing a picnic basket while Dad rummaged under the hood, checking oil and engine fluids. Another five shots involved the kids loading skateboards and toys into the car. Then, there are six shots captured through-the-windscreen as the car made its way to the park, and stopped by the lake.

Things are starting to make a kind of sense ... Yep, you're seeing what is a plot in the simplest sense of the word. Events strung together on a timeline. What's going on in the individual video clips is made coherent by the order the clips are viewed. The sense of time and place makes the difference. Events are no longer jumbled; they tell a story.

The simplest plots are absolutely linear. They're a daisy-chain of events which move from the Beginning to the End and tell a story of, say, a roadtrip, a wedding, or a party. A simple laundry line will do here: events are pegged to it, and you're done. You can stand back and study the satisfying results of what is a plot so simple, really, it's typical of the read-along picture books enjoyed by very young children.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a story of this simplicity. We all begin our reading careers with them. If you're intending to write for young children, the timeline approach is perfect.

Any timeline has three major segments: Beginning. Middle. End.

Most important, when you're considering the question, 'What is a plot?', is to develop a sense of time, because time takes events and makes them coherent. Without time, there would be no coherent plot, simple or otherwise!

The Beginning is the point at which your readers get a grasp on the when, the who, the where, and the why. Very soon in the story, you need to establish the facts. For example:

• WHEN: This plot line begins in 1864.
• WHO: This story involves a brother and sister, James and Sally MacLean.
• WHERE: The story begins in Galveston, Texas.
• WHY: James and Sally have come to town to rescue their aged Aunt Marie.

The when, who, where and why, give your readers an anchor point. As soon as these values are established, you can take off in any direction with only your imagination as a guide ... but another good answer to 'what is a plot?', is that a plot starts out as an empty timeline. Imagine an empty laundry line. It's going to be full soon! So long as events are pegged to their timeline in order ... you've got a plot.

The early part of the story will be spent in setting the scene, describing the characters and location, defining what the problems are. In the above story, you'd be talking about the effects of the American Civil War on the ordinary people, many of whom who lost everything. The Beginning of the story doesn't have to be a third of the length of the whole book, incidentally, just because the timeline is divided into three parts. It can be just the first couple of chapters, setting up the action which will hold your readers to the end. But the Beginning is extremely important, because it's here where readers decide it they like your characters, and your writing style, enough to keep on reading!

The Middle is a critical part of any plot line. It's where you can most easily lose your readers! Notice how a laden laundry line sags downward in the middle with the weight of wet clothes hanging off it. Plot lines and clothes lines are sadly alike. The more stuff you hang on them, the more they start to drag.

Have you ever started a book and never finished it? Was it slow, even boring, in the middle? How about a movie during which you went to sleep because nothing interesting (that is, interesting to you, specifically ... other viewers might have been thrilled) was happening. The plot line will always slow down in the middle as the story grows more complex. So —

Ask again, 'Just what is a plot, anyway?' It's more than a timeline in three segments which makes coherent sense of events. The passage of time in the real world creates just such sequences, in which school semesters drag on forever, camping trips in the rain are never over fast enough, winter nights are weeks long. All these sequences are sensible, coherent. They're more than likely also boring!

A plot line is artificial. You, the writer, create it. You set the pace, get it started with then when, who, where, and why, and in the middle events are shuffled like a deck of cards, traded and tossed out, till what's left is just right. 'Time line' turns into 'plot line' when you deliberately take reality by the scruff of its neck and give it a good shake.

In the middle of the story, 'what is a plot?' Is a question not so easily answered. It's building bricks, elements, characters, ideas, issues, themes, problems faced by the characters, troubles they either overcome -- or don't. The middle is the part where people say 'the plot thickens.' For instance:

• Aunt Marie won't move from her comfortable home. Her husband is aged and seriously ill, he can't safely be moved and she won't leave him.
• Sally meets an old boyfriend, Robert, who has joined the Confederate Army ... being a pacifist, she is shocked both by Robert's decision to fight, the side he's chosen — and the fact she still loves him. James and Robert used to be friends, but now they share only enmity.
• Robert loves Sally enough to risk helping her, bringing doctors to treat old Uncle John ... and it turns out, old John is hiding a secret. On his deathbed he tells Sally where he hid his fortune in bullion, before the war broke out.
• Sally tells Robert — and suddenly the local Confederate Army officer, who turns out to be Robert's older cousin Will, gets to hear of it. Will determines to use his military resources to find the bullion and use it for the war effort, even though it was intended to be the MacLean family's security and livelihood after the war. James is incensed, and confronts Colonel Will Tyrone; they argue and Tyrone shoots him.
• James might easily die if he gets no medical help ... Uncle John has been buried ... Robert is a junior officer and must go with Tyrone's cavalry column to loot the MacLean fortune, or else be executed for desertion.
• Now, only Sally can get her aunt and her ailing brother away, out of the war, but she has no money, no resources. All she has is a few old acquaintances from years ago, one of whom is a 'free gentleman of color' from New Orleans, who owns a boat...

What is a plot, indeed! It's a mountain of ideas and themes, people and relationships. The above paragraph was jotted down off the cuff, It's not an existing movie or novel, but it could easily become one. The whole thing began with the when, where, who and why, which framed the beginning for the story. Then the bricks began to go up around the framework.

This is a plot line. More than a timeline, much more than a sequence. And the factor missing from the above plot is, of course, the ending. The last segment of the line on which all the events are pegged in their best order.

The ending is even more important than the middle. It's so crucial, we'll be tackling it separately. The ending is where you, the writer, must 'deliver the goods,' leave the reader with a feeling of satisfaction, and a thirst for your next book. You want to know that this reader will actually be looking for you, the next time they're in the store, or they'll be at Amazon.com, searching on your name.

This article is not actually about thrashing out plots. We'll look at working out how this one ends elsewhere! For now, let's set out what we know, and we'll be good to go.

So, 'what is a plot?' It's made up of a timeline which has three clearly distinct segments: beginning, middle and end. Inside of those segments, it's a flurry of 'elements' ranging from issues and themes, people and relationships, confrontations, problems ... life and death. But whereas real time, in the real world, creates sequences of events which might not lend themselves to being written up, faithfully, as thrilling stories, 'plotting' is artificial.

Plotting is the first job a writer does: pulling all the elements into order, shuffling, discarding, trading, to turn 'reality' into 'plot line.' And the results should be gripping enough to catch and hold your readers. A good plot also involves a great ending ... and in the another article, on plot lines and their development, we'll tackle this, head-on...

What is plot development, and how do writers use it to build unforgettable story endings?