Here's a cut-down version of an approach I use in various ways to try and create plot. It's actually part of a bigger method that I use with themes, but this is just the plot bit.
Core Ingredients:
- An interesting main character that readers will want to learn about. It is either about to lose something big or want something big, but either way this will change the character's life;
- An adversary who might or might not be villainous but must get in the way of what the main character wants;
- Other complications and distractions as required.
Stage I - Develop Loglines
For the adversary, create a
logline in the following form: In
situation1,
adversary wants
objective1, but
something about main character creates
obstacle1. Can
adversary achieve
objective1 or will
disaster1 befall?
Now for the main character do the same: In
situation2,
main character wants
objective2, but
something about adversary creates
obstacle2. Can
main character achieve
objective2 or will
disaster2 befall?
Now think about how
situation2 might lead to
situation1 or vice-versa. Think about how the characters might create obstacles for one another.
Example:
This is a crime story. Our adversary is the murderess Cora, a wealthy young heiress with the ear of the local mayor, and the investigator is a librarian Therese Elliot. Here are their log-lines. (I generally find that it helps to do the antagonist's first.)
Cora: When Cora's brother Ralph discover that his sister is actually adopted, he makes secret plans to remove her from their father's will. Cora plans a perfect murder, but when the local librarian comes close to discovering her secret, can she thwart the investigation or will she go to jail?
Therese: When librarian Therese Elliot tries to recover some rare books that Ralph borrowed from the library, she begins to suspect that Ralph has been killed -- but is she mistaken? Can Therese recover the books and uncover a possible crime before Cora gets her fired -- or worse?
Stage II -- Create a Basic Step Plan
Now we need to write out in steps each of the key decisions the characters make. Each decision must be made in response to something another character does (i.e. stimulus/response), and should be consistent with their motives and personalities and meet the descriptions of the log-lines above. It should be obvious from the log-lines that the first step is Cora's.
- According to her father's will, Cora stands to inherit a big sum of money at age 25. However rifling through her brother's bureau she discovers that she is adopted and that her older brother Ralph is secretly trying to cut her out of her inheritance. When her brother prepares to go interstate to a rock concert, she drugs him and runs his car into a deep part of the local lake, then burns the documents that show her adoption and her brother's plans. (This is backstory)
- Unknown to Cora, Ralph had borrowed some rare collector's rock books from the library on short-term loan. Therese and Ralph share a love for the same band, and Therese bent some rules to loan Ralph part of the library's collection. Now she needs them back -- and she goes to Cora's house personally to collect them.
- When Therese comes to Cora's house about some library books, Cora makes the mistake of telling Therese that her brother posted them before he left. (In fact he did no such thing -- they are in the trunk of his car.) She little reckons though with Therese's doggedness.
- Relieved at the news, Therese waits two more days but the books don't arrive. The Head Librarian is beginning to ask questions, so Therese goes to the post office and discovers that Ralph was never there.
- ...
This step plan goes back and forth like a game of chess. Therese makes a move; Cora notices and makes a move. Therese responds and makes another move. Each reacts to the other without necessarily realising who they're dealing with.
Each is trying to get what they want; each starts unaware of the impact on the other. Over time though, the stakes must rise... Therese must begin to suspect that Ralph is missing... perhaps dead. Cora begins to realise that Therese won't give up -- she'll start trying to discredit Therese then perhaps hire someone to threaten or hurt her.
Stage III -- Complicate Things
At the moment all the moves are being made by Therese and Cora. But what if there were other characters with other goals? Suppose that Ralph's lawyer suspects Cora's complicity and Cora has to kill him off? Suppose that unbeknown to Cora, her adoptive mother lives in town and knows her secret? Suppose that the library is facing cut-backs and Therese's job is up for review? Suppose that Ralph owed some money to a bookie, and pawned one of the rare books to help pay him off?
You can give each major character in the story their own logline and let them contribute complications, distractions and red-herrings as you see fit.
Stage IV -- Build to Climax
For a story to have satisfying tension, it needs to work its way toward a climax for the main character. The climax is built around the main character's disaster -- so, it's about Therese losing her job. Perhaps she loses it? Perhaps she's suspended? Perhaps she's accused of theft herself? The more excruciating we can make the climax the better.
Or perhaps there's more than one climax -- perhaps there's a false climax (in which the bookie is arrested on suspicion of murder) but Cora is still out to kill Therese?
Stage V -- Resolve Things
In the resolution, every outstanding log-line must resolve. A character either gets what it wants or must see disaster... if it's the former then the disaster may be averted; if it's the latter then we need to know how the disaster changes the character.
Building the Drama
While the steps above are enough to create plot, to create
compelling plot we need five critical things:
- Internal conflicts -- especially in the main character, but potentially in every major character. A plot that forces a character to make hard choices is more compelling than a character whose choices are always easy.
- Adversity -- more is better. Give the character challenges to overcome, and setbacks to suffer -- but make them all consequences of choices previously made.
- Surprises -- especially with complications and revelations. The more surprises, the more a reader will want to hear more
- Extremes of situation -- it's not enough that Therese's job is threatened; it has to be threatened at a time when she's behind on rent and lent money to her sister. It's not enough that some thug menaces her; he should break her car, trash her grandmother's heirloom crockery, nail her cat to the door.
- Pressure to change -- A main character suffering internal conflicts will either remain steadfast or change. Sometimes remaining steadfast is the better outcome; sometimes it's better to change. But characters don't always make the right choice. Readers care very much whether a main character changes and whether its decision to change or not is good. To make this interesting it's important that our main character has strengths and weaknesses, virtues and vices, and that these are tested in the story.
When Do We Have Enough Plot?
It really depends on how many scenes we want, and also the viewpoint we write in. If we write from just the MC's viewpoint, then the reader will only see the scenes that the MC sees -- at most the MC will hear about the other stuff later. But if we write from multiple viewpoints then you will see scenes for each step in each viewpoint.
A step will normally expand to at least one scene, and sometimes as many as four or five. A short story might have a six to 12 scenes; a novel might have 80.
Recently in my WIP I wrote 'After consoling himself over a fight with his girlfriend, the hero catches a train to meet an old member of his army unit who can exonerate him. But after saving his squadmate's life from local criminals, he discovers that his squadmate has been bribed to keep his mouth shut -- and won't open it for anyone.' I originally thought that would be two scenes, but so far I've written four and it might end up needing six.
So I think we're better off writing less plot to start with, then adding complications to make it interesting. Plot that looks blindingly simple on paper can end up being rich and complicated once we add action, dialogue and internal dilemmas.
Outline or Wing it?
I do a bit of both -- sometimes in the same story, and I've found that it doesn't matter. Often I'll break a story into its key steps and then wing some scenes and plan others. Sometimes I'll just plan the early steps and leave the later steps unplanned as I did above. Sometimes a scene will persuade me to change steps -- so I will. There are no rules as how early we need to do it. Likewise, if we have a partial manuscript in development that we've been winging, we can break it down into the sort of stimulus/response steps above, and from there try to work out what the log-lines are. From the log-lines we then can get ideas for more steps and more scenes.
There are no rules, but I've found that the log-lines and the stimulus/response steps are key to working out plots. We can do them early or do them late, but eventually I think we need them there.
Hope that helps.