What should you know about plotting a book? Ask any writer and I’ll bet you’ll find a
majority of them will admit – plotting is their favorite part of writing.
Plot is the writer’s choice of incidents to use to unfold the
story of the character’s development and growth toward their goal or desire. Wow that was a mouth full! Let’s make some sense outta that!
Create plots and characters that are believable and work
together.
It takes a series of conflicts to create a good plot.
·
Every scene should have incident, change, and conflict. If a scene has no conflict, either delete it
or create some.
o
Even small conflict must contribute to the changes your
character will undergo.
·
People are defined by the choices they make under stress. Great information to remember if you’re
writing a suspense or thriller.
·
Make sure you aren’t adding meaningless action for reaction
sake. Keep in mind that the reader has
to care about what is happening to the people in your story.
Unfortunately I can’t say I’m perfect . . . bet you can’t
either. So, why would we want to create
perfect characters? Well, we
shouldn’t. The protagonist should have
strengths and weaknesses. He should also
fail, and maybe not just once but several times before succeeding. Failure builds conflict and emotions.
When you’re plotting keep in mind that your story is only as
interesting as the characters make it – both the protagonist and the
antagonist.
When I say a book was great – it’s usually because it surprised
me. I’m actually disappointed when I
figure the plot out.
Never fall into the coincidence trap. It’s a cop-out – you know it and so does the
reader.
And finally, while plotting make sure you enrich your book with
layer upon layer of internal and external conflict. Create the mental or emotional struggles that
occur within a character. Build the struggle
that occurs between a character and outside forces, which could be another
character or the environment.
My next blog – let’s
discuss the difference between event and character driven plots.
The element of surprise is so important, Rita. I've been doing some editing lately and have noticed sometimes newer authors don't put as much thought into this as they should. In romantic suspense, you can't drop hints all along who the killer is and then have him actually turn out to be the killer!
ReplyDeleteAlso I read a story recently with no conflict. The couple was happy. They met, they dated, had lots of sex, got married, had a child, etc. Ended with them living happily ever after! I kept waiting for something to happen!
Great post Rita.