Note: “Finding Your Fiction: Concise Steps to Writing Successful Fiction” – blog posts derived from my popular “Finding Your Fiction” workshop in association with St. Louis Writers Workshop and St. Louis Writers Guild. Completed guide will be available as an ebook, likely on Smashwords. (Feedback, incisive or otherwise, welcome.)
Section I
Choosing plot over character is dangerous. Plot is presented here first mainly because it might be “easier” to comprehend. On the other hand, characters drive plot. Which should come first — Plot or Character? (Aristotle listed dramatic effects in descending order: plot, character, dialogue, music/style, and spectacle.)
Good literature has dynamic characters. (While I use direct statements often, you should “almost always” qualify them, because there are “almost always” exceptions to the rule.)
Are you a soft, eloquent writer? Or do you write harsh eye-popping prose? Regardless of your narrative style, you need a plot. Good plots get the readers’ attention immediately and keep their attention by raising questions and delaying the answers.
Basically, plot fall into two categories. Suspense looks to the future for answers. What happens next? Mystery looks to the past. How did this happen?
Classical Plots
have a beginning, middle, end
result in significant change
give reader emotional satisfaction
often progress in a series of loops forming a circle
can be seen as quests (for survival, money, relationships, return to normalcy)
Plot Requirements
Characters, including protagonist (see next section on Character)Conflict
Inner (guilt, fear, doubt, anger)
Interpersonal (A wants what B has.)
Environmental (physical or social threats)
Resolution
Avoids “deus ex machina” (see below)
Resolution in hands of protagonist skills to resolve the quest
Optional-obligatory “Hollywood” scene – meeting of protagonist and antagonist
What is “deus ex machina”? A term used to make critics sound smart. Literally, it means, “God from the machine.” It refers to the earliest fiction, Greek plays, when at the end an actor was hoisted down onto the stage, and provided a convenient but contrived resolution. Everybody dies. Doesn’t this happen in Hamlet? Just about but it makes sense.
Plot Beginnings
Establish background, then introduce the precipitating event and start the action.
Start with precipitating event and start of action, then feed in the back story.
Activity: Recall your favorite stories and identify classical plot elements.
Section II
Other somewhat paraphrased descriptions of essential plot elements condensed and gleaned from my direct experience with literary agents, publishers, and how to books.
- Guidelines received in a detailed rejection from a literary agency.
A basic plot structure, includes a 3D “sympathetic” lead character is confronted with an urgent problem. As the character tries to solve the problem, he or she becomes entwined in complications, deepening the conflict, becoming severe, more urgent, until the climax, the point of absolute crisis where all seems lost. At the last moment, he or she finds a solution. The original problem is overcome. The lead must accomplish the task single-handedly, or as close to it as possible, and avoid major coincidence or deus ex machina.
- Guidelines from one of my former literary agents, presented in a book and included as part of the agency agreement.
The Beginning
Brief descriptions of protagonist and setting. Who is where? What is he or she doing and why?
Something happens. Hook. Initial event that get things going, often setting up the central conflict that causes the character to act, reflect, change, grow.
Protagonist reacts to the initial event, making a decision for better or worse, or choosing to delay the decision.
The Middle
Protagonist is confronted with more conflict, characters, events decisions, feelings, and reactions.
Pressure created by the central conflict builds up, forcing more difficult decisions.
Emphasizing central conflict, which will lead to the resolution.
The End
Characters are poised for a final act or set of actions, “suspense” is tearing reader apart, concluding when the conflict is resolved.
Climax is the scene in which the central conflict of the novel is resolved.
After the climax, action and tension nearly cease to exist, but the characters may tidy up odds and ends in the denouement, or descending action.
- Guidelines from a “how to” book. Nigel Watts’ eight-point arc. I highly recommend his “teach yourself” book writing a novel.
Stasis – base reality, starting point
Trigger – beyond control of protagonist, turns day from average to exceptional
Quest – to get back to normal, to get more pleasure, to maintain satisfaction in the face of an onslaught, can begin as one quest and evolve into another.
Surprise – along the way on the quest, must encounter credible surprises, obstacles, steadily increasing in severity.
Critical choices – to continue on the quest, protagonist must decide which way to go, or how to overcome obstacles
Climax – a “visible” event where all the critical choices come to a head and decisive action is taken.
Reversal – Aristotle — “change from one state of affairs to its opposite.” Consequences of previous events, of surprises, choices, climaxes.
Resolution – a fresh stasis.
Activity: Recall your favorite stories and identify a major question raised near the beginning.
Section III
Beware Sub-Plot.
Sub-plots are necessary to add dimension lacking in the main plot. The are like sounding boards to the main plot and help give the main characters their unique identities. Our main Joe is nothing like his buddy, the big clumsy dope, Ryan.
Sub-Plots help pace the action. They often provide obstacles to delay the climax.
However, writers can easily find themselves enamored with their secondary characters. Soon they are writing two stories, two novels, instead of one. They have created a two-headed monster, both stories competing for attention and both so intertwined that it becomes impossible to correct without extreme slash and burn techniques.
Activity: Identify a sub-plot in one of your favorite stories.
