Digging Your Plot

Not a plot... The Plot is not just simply what happens in a work of fiction. It is an understanding between you and your characters of how events will play out. 

The Plot comes in many disguises. 

As most writers will argue their characters shape their Plots. We covered this briefly in “Characters – Good or Bad we need them,” and no matter what or where the sparks of our ideas come from, your characters will intimately open the door for you to enter, shape and tell the story. 

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If you have a good understanding of your character’s motivations and personalities from the start, then your Plotting is going to be made easier, and your characters, and the unfolding events more believable. 

Accordingly, your Plot will emerge from your characters as they search to escape the struggles these difficulties generate, which in turn cause conflict, and tension, within themselves and other characters. 

Graham Green once wrote “The novel is an unknown man, and I have to find him.”

Plot is all about causality. 

Cause and effect exists between two events or states of affairs. If one is understood as the cause, then the other is the effect as demonstrated in this very simplistic example: 

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“Because Bella fell from the ladder, she is now in hospital. Her
accident landed her a week in hospital.”

As you can see Bella’s fall from the ladder is the ‘cause’ and the ‘effect’ is a week in hospital.

Do not make the mistake of imposing Plot on your characters, or indulging a character’s whims at the expense of your Plot. 

Although, there is a lot of juggling going on between the two, they will need to share the same bed, and lay comfortably with each other.

You need to draw your Reader in to your story,  and hold them with the storyline, while your character’s actions and decisions, captivate your Readers imaginations. 

You need to speak to your characters, ask them questions to advance your Plot. At this point, what does she want to do? Given the person he is would he do this? What would the result be if he/she did this instead?

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Another way to think of your Plot is in terms of conflict. When your character wrestles with doubts, problems and challenging situations this causes conflict. Conflict will grow out of your characters if the choices they need to make are at times equally undesirable. There are many scenarios for conflict, which we will discuss in next week’s Blog.

As always keep the pen to paper and write, write, write.