This blog post will give you some tips to help you plot easier and get rid of the ‘plotting fear’ which I know some writers have. Plotting can be helpful sometimes, and successful writers know where they’re going and it also helps you with the editing phase. The most ideal situation, I‘ve found that if you know when you’ve got to follow an outline and when to divert it, I will go into that, too. This post will go over the basic building blocks of structure (the big picture stuff) and give you some further reading to do, if you want it.
This raises the first question: What is story structure?
Story structure refers to the idea of how the pieces of a story fit together into one specific larger piece. If we imagine the structure of a story as puzzle pieces, then it becomes slightly easier to understand. Going with this metaphor, then, is the idea that these larger ‘sections’ of the puzzle are the plot points. I will say, now, that each of these plot points should be at least 10,000 words per section. These go as follows:
SECTION ONE: Act One
How was your character before?
What is the trigger that flings your character into some form chaos?
SECTION TWO: The Journey
What does your character go on to do? Send them on a specific quest which aligns with their values.
What surprises your character? There is a specific surprise that must hit your character like a knock to the head.
What easy choice is your character going to try and take to solve the problem?
Now that’s fallen flat on its face, what more drastic measures will your character take to try and solve the problem and issues they’ve got themselves into?
What is going to be the climatic point? What is has your narrative been building up to?
SECTION THREE: The End
·What reverses the fate of your characters? This tends to be a character/information/item that your characters never knew they needed.
The final image that will resonate with your reader long after they’ve closed the book
If you consider an average scene in a novel is about 1000-2000 words, you need to do this about 40-80 times in a novel. The best thing to do now, then, is work on how you’ll do it!
Scene structure
The easiest way you can work the scene structure is by doing it in smaller parts. This goes as follows, where the middle should be the biggest part:
· Choice: where your character makes some form of choice, can be literally anything. Stabbing an enemy, getting a tea with a date, ect.
· Reaction: the reaction to the choice. This is where your character, or the world around them, has some form of reaction to the choice they made. Does the enemy live from the stack and go on a vengeance attack against the MC? Does the person want to go on a second date?
· Result: the result of the reaction and this should lead to the next scene’s choice. It should go around like a ciricle.
Tip One: Plot backwards
The best thing the most backwards things. As a disabled person I put my tops on back-to-front sometimes, and as a result, I know how weird it can feel, but sometimes being weird gets you out of the creative rut, inspires something. Western languages, and people by extension, read left to right. This is the regular way of reading, and thus, my advice is writing backwards (but you can if you think that would help and can do it!). This isn’t literally writing backwards, but I mean writing the ending first. The advantage to writing the ending first, is that now you’ve got somewhere to write towards and can write the beginning with the end in mind. A sixth form I went to an open day for told me to do just that, and even though I didn’t go there, I’ve kept the sentiment.
You can even, if It makes more sense to you, plot backwards. You can plot the ending as the first scene and do some trippy puzzle building exercise. Damn, I need to write like that, it sounds like it would be very fun!
Tip Two: Expand bullets
Expanding bullets is something that I’ve told my students in my placement very recently. I don’t see the point of being able to – and expecting yourself, as a writer – to write scenes completely without planning details. I’m not telling you to plan so much that you can just pieces the parts of a scene together, as that isn’t the easiest thing to do. What I am advising you to do is writing smaller bullet points and writing everything you can about a scene. After you’ve done that you can expand those bullets to make more specifically vivid images.
Tip Three: Faithfully let yourself be influenced
The faithful influence thing comes from the simple fact that as people, we are influenced by our experiences, the art we consume, and these are all aspects which combine and create our personalities. These, obviously, then, feed into our writing. You can be influenced by the structure of a text, the themes, the writing style, the plot, characters. The line, then, is drawn when you decide to steal without credit. Of course we shouldn’t credit every line of our work – everything has been done before of course – but we should understand the influences and what has influenced us in creating a text. This is why, in my placement, I'm trying to expose my students to a variety of different things and then give them more to draw from.
Subverting a Plan
I’ve said all I need to about plotting and how to ensure that you write the plan you know you need, but I feel like it’s the best course of action now to ensure that you know when its best to subvert a plan.
Tip one: Story gets boring
where the story gets boring, readers will know very well. you as a writer need to write your story for you first, then for commercial people second. at least that's my opinion. the reason being is that if you as the writer are bored, your readers will be bored to. chuck exciting eliments which are plot relivent into your work whenever possible to spice things up. who doesn't like at least a little bit of narrative spice once in a while?
Tip Two: Better places ahead
consider where the best place for your story to go is. if you've introduced a new plot eliment, you can either reconstruct your plan to fit it in, or try to mold your story around it, in such a way as people reading it would have never guessed it.
I hope this post has helped you in learning how to outline effectively. If you want more tips and tricks on writing, there are two things you can do! The first is following this blog and subscribing to the newsletter, and the second is following The Writers Den for some interactive workshops and classes on different bits of writing craft, where I aim to use these posts as a base to then expand from.