Plots

I thought PLOT sounded scary until I read something which said 'plot is what happens to the characters'
Plot is the characters journey (unless your writing a thriller or a mystery then I'm out of here!)
It is difficult to know what situations to put your character in so what I have been doing is thinking up stories, writing down my ideas and letting each one grow in my head to see how far it gets (I have to start a new novel for Uni next term and at one point I was getting very frustrated and panicky because I had no plot)
Reading helps too. It helped me to see that not all plots are earth-shattering. Some are very simple. For me it's about whether I care about the characters or not. If I don't care about them then the plot doesn't matter.

This probably doesn't help you a bit but don't give up. And don't try to hard to think up a plot because that seems to hamper the creative process. Let your subconcious help you. Good luck.

BrianTubbs said:

To all:

I feel stupid asking this, but....

I am comfortable with scene description, dialogue, and (to some extent) character development - though, in all those areas, I'm still learning. And I'm very good at coming up with good settings for my storylines.

But I am extremely frustrated and feel completely INEPT at designing PLOTS - the basic building block of any novel.

What resources (websites, software, etc) do you all recommend?

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So don't build a plot. A great many published writers never even think about plot. Plot is not the basic building block of a novel. To many writers, including Stephen King and Ray Bradbury, plot is something you get as a byproduct after you've simply told a story.

I start with what I hope is an interesting character in an interesting situation, and then I just follow along and watch what happens. The novel is about how the character solves the situation, or answers the question, that chapter one poses.

I don't need to build a plot for this to happen. I don't even have to think about plot, and I never do.

I recommend..

BrianTubbs said:

To all:

I feel stupid asking this, but....

I am comfortable with scene description, dialogue, and (to some extent) character development - though, in all those areas, I'm still learning. And I'm very good at coming up with good settings for my storylines.

But I am extremely frustrated and feel completely INEPT at designing PLOTS - the basic building block of any novel.

What resources (websites, software, etc) do you all recommend?

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I recommend a writing group, and a little relaxation. I've noticed that sometimes you're frustrated with plot because as the writer you know how it all happens and why, but you forget that the readers don't know everything that you do. So get some feedback as you write, or on your draft and see if your reader is where you wanted. If not, ammend. If so, realize you're doing it right.

What helps me to establish plot ( first have characters in 3 diminsions who live , breath and are made of flesh) is to really think about their motivations , goals , dreams and desires ..... I will actually put myself in the shoes of each character I am close enough with (even if they have completly differing views from myself) and try to think "as they would" often finding their true function in the "world" .
It helps to be a bit Bi-Polar , but will often lead you towards plot lines , twists and events that you may have never thought of on your own and I often find that even the plot I had intended on has now been put completly aside now that I understand my charater .
Regardless of what many may say , a plot line is not overtly important in the beging stages of book creation .... In Fact a plot will often hinder you and bind you once you have a true feel for the "people" you create ..... Better to just have a general idea of how things come ro pass , be dynamic and dont box yourself in to a rigid plot line .
Develop VERY deep , complex and well crafted characters and keep a file on each , containing all manner of information on them that may or may not be relavent to your book but will certainly be detremental to your dealings in trying to realistically portray what they might do in any given situation .
If possible , have a good ending in mind (not worrying about how you will nessasarily get there , write a very rough last chapter (again , DO NOT box yourself in) and go from there .
In my experience , chapter outlines and a rigid script are not at all important in the begining (and can be a factor in writers block) and for me personally , dont come into play until at least several chapters (written in ANY order) have been drafted..... It isnt until this point that (for me) a true plot becomes discernable ....
Having a good basic ideal of where you are going is what matters in the begining ......
You wil do fine. ,

I would say first, don't feel stupid. Questions are just solutions in waiting.

A lot of people think PLOT is a four letter word. Are you perhaps confusing plot with something you expect should be long, complicated and puzzle-like ? A plot can simply be what's happening in the lives of the characters and how they deal with it.

A plot can be nothing more than one character coming to terms with another.

It's the Who and How and Why that make up the What. I'd suggest, as practice, that you simply create your setting and some characters, give them flesh and let them start to interact and speak, move around and express themselves, and then see what happens in their lives.

Then look at what you've done, and see if you find a Plot already in there.

Brian , concerning the chaplin .....The book could begin at wars end , the chaplin remembring back to times and events , peolple lost , soldier sickness , everything .... The 'present tense' could revolve around the celebration of newly gained independence but at what cost ?
You could consistantly refer back to his memorys , thus not having to go over the whole time period ..... Just a thought

BrianTubbs said:

I did get a good idea from (of all places) a Jean-Claude Van Damme movie, Second in Command, about an American embassy which harbors an embattled and unpopular prime minister. But I can't steal that.

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Sure you can. After all, the plot for "West Side Story" was stolen from "Romeo and Juliet." Even if you start out with the same plot, chances are you'll end up with a completely different story.

I stumbled across a method called "The Snowflake Method" for writing novels. I'm trying it out for my first novel (my left brain needs feeding ). Maybe it might help you too? Just Google "snowflake method" and see if it looks like something that might work.

Familiarity with music and poetry helped me to understand plot. Plot is the geometry of the book or short-story or poem. The logical structure of the entire composition. But prose geometry isnt so rigid as haiku or a fugue. It's what keeps your composition from being word-salad or noise.

Novel plots are the biggest and most complicated kind of plot. I have made the best progress at understanding plot by analyzing myth and folktale plots and working my way up through play and novella plots. I'm working on a how-to-write book which is mostly about a structural approach to what plot is and how to develop one. (Also covers how theme and characters are related to plot.) I'm looking for beta-readers if you're interested: in return for showing you the material I would expect a verbal non-disclosure agreement and a critique of the material.

I knew Clyde Beatty the lion-tiger tamer. Here are some of his plot-points. Be first in the cage, be last out. When a lion or tiger becomes aggressive shoot your pistol, crack your whip, yell, or poke a chair at the animal....it dumps their memory immediately and they forget why theyre pissed at you.

i heard somewhere that a good novel should have at least 12 "turning points" in the plot to keep the reader gripped. you know, something that throws the protag off course, or moves him/her further away from their goal

Plot - will it bury you...?

MidnightMuse said:

I would say first, don't feel stupid. Questions are just solutions in waiting.

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Suddenly, I'm thinking of a wise frog in a toga, sitting atop a mountain...

MidnightMuse said:

A lot of people think PLOT is a four letter word...

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Hm. 1.) P 2.) L 3.) O 4.) T
By gum, it is a four letter word!

Sorry, couldn't resist.

MidnightMuse said:

Are you perhaps confusing plot with something you expect should be long, complicated and puzzle-like ? A plot can simply be what's happening in the lives of the characters and how they deal with it.

A plot can be nothing more than one character coming to terms with another.

It's the Who and How and Why that make up the What. I'd suggest, as practice, that you simply create your setting and some characters, give them flesh and let them start to interact and speak, move around and express themselves, and then see what happens in their lives.

Then look at what you've done, and see if you find a Plot already in there.

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The Muse speaketh the truth.

Plot is a maligned word these days. One of the problems, I think, is that not everybody shares the same definition of what a "plot" is. Take Jamesaritchie's comment, for instance: personally, I have a hard time writing like that unless I'm just doing mental exercises – but the technique works for him. Heck, by a toenail, just dropping a character into a scenario could be considered a type of plot.

Shakespeare once wrote: "To plot, or not to plot, that is the question..." Okay, not really, but there may be some deep and complex psychology at work that most folk don't realize has a bearing on their method. A lot of the approach – indeed, how "creativity" itself unfolds – may be determined by your own sense of mental organization. Without getting all pop-psych over it, let's look at it in writer's terms:

The possibility of writing for a particular effect/point [toward a particular goal] may stifle a person's creative juices. They tend to write character-centric and might use a scenario to kick it off but not plan out an arc of how a story unfolds. They would find an outline restrictive – but then [often] have to deal with challenges of where to go (especially if they didn't start out with some guiding theme for what the story was about – endemic when writers pour out a character and watch to see what they'll do).

OTOH, some folk write from farther back, creating a large-scale view of a story. That, essentially, is a thumbnail of one kind of "plotting." When this kind of writer gets closer, into the scene-by-scene narrative, their own challenge is staying true to the large-scale story while still letting the characters stretch their legs. Writers that have epic stories planned out have to deal with this problem a lot: they were planning to zig when "the character" zagged. Do they tweak the story arc or figure out how to massage the character back onto the right path? That's where it gets fun!

I think E.M. Forster said it best in Aspects of the Novel when he wrote:

A plot is a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. "The king died and the queen died" is a story. "The king died and the queen died of grief" is a plot.

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Considering the death of the queen, if it occurred in a story, the reader asks "and then?" If it is in a plot, the reader asks "why?"

Plot

I think a lot of new writers have trouble with plot because they want to know all that happens form page one to page last. I'm not sure this is even possible, let alone desirable. Even most of the writers I know who plot a novel to death in advance of the writing make changes along the way when actually doing the writing.

Others, even many who plot, screw up because they don't understand that plot and story aren't the same thing.

More screw up because they get the weird notion that writing without a plot is the same thing as stream of consciousness. It isn't. It a careful method of writing that uses knowledge of structure to tell a story without needing to plot in advance.

It you just betgin writing without understand the struce of a story, you're doing it wrong. If you don't understand that a novel ends in the same place it begins, you're doing it wrong.

Just don't let plot drive you crazy. Novels are not about plot. Novels are about story and character. The best plot in the world will not produce a good novel. If you think it will, find a great plot and give it to ten new writers. You'll get back nine bad novels. Plot won't get you anywhere.

if you must have a plot before you begin writing, make it a bare bones plot. One sentence per chapter. Then write a good story filled with good characters based on this. Some people can plot well, some people only think they can plot well, and some people can't plot worth penny.

Find out what works for you, and don't worry about what anyone else says.

Who is your favorite writer? The one you would walk twenty miles on a rainy day to read? Find out how he or she writes novels. Odds are pretty good this is how you should at least attempt to write one.

I agree that plot isn't nearly as important as character. I'm sure all of us have read a novel in which the plot was good, but the characterization of the players was terrible. I could care less about the plot if I don't care about the characters. Who the heck cares what happens to them?

If you create characters that are real -- that come alive-- then things will happen to them. For me, things happened that surprised even me. I didn't know it was going to happen until I saw myself write them. Good characters will do stuff and you'll have your plot.

I guess what I'm saying is ditto to everyone else.

James that was eloquintly put .... My thoughts excactly

Becky Writes

When your character's airplane is blow out of the sky by terrorists, you dont want her suddenly remembering she learned to fly like a bird at summer camp when she was 12. The reader will throw your book across the room. So plot is very important.

Mayor of Moronia said:

Becky Writes

When your character's airplane is blow out of the sky by terrorists, you dont want her suddenly remembering she learned to fly like a bird at summer camp when she was 12. The reader will throw your book across the room. So plot is very important.

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I didn't say it wasn't important, I said it wasn't nearly as inportant as character. As a reader I could care less if the MC got blown up or if she could fly if I didn't give a crap about her anyway. If it's a character that I can relate to and care about and am just FASINATED with, then I'd read about her reading the paper. Okay, maybe not, but I hope I've made my point.

As a writer, I've found that when you create interesting characters and you have a basic idea of something that could happen to him/her, then the plot will thicken, as they say...

Am I the only one whose characters do things that were unexpected?

Does anyone else here believe the reader is most important?

Mayor of Moronia said:

Does anyone else here believe the reader is most important?

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Since the reader is not in the book, I don't see how the reader could possibly be the most important thing in the book. On the other hand, I think you could say some readers mostly care about plot, some mostly care about character, some mostly care about theme or are in love with a particular trope. Personally I would say that they're all important, but which one is most important ddepends on the kind of book you're writing. Thrillers, epics, heroic journeys, and mysteries are about plot, romances and psychodramas are about character.

sunandshadow

I've read many of the threads here and I havent seen one post where a writer addresses the significance of the reader. Yet I come across references to the importance of readers in most of the how-to-write books I read (by the Super Writers).

Your point is well taken Mayor , and true . The problem stems from not knowing who the reader is. A book for my son will center around him and thus he would be most important. Readers of any specific genera are still very diverse and independint meaning your stuck with making the characters the most important and just have to hope a signifagent # of your readers agree ....
You first have to write for YOU .

The reader is the consumer. They are always considered, even if not mentioned. If a bunch of cooks are sitting around discussing how to create the greatest recipe ever, they talk about ingredients, spices and preparation technique. They probably won't mentioned the people who will eat their masterpiece, but you damn well know pleasing the diner is the whole point.