
Stuck on plotting? At least once a week I get a call from a current or former student who’s stuck on plotting.
You can get unstuck quickly: focus on your characters, because your plot is what your characters do.
Your plot is what your characters DO
However, you can’t follow your characters around during an ordinary day when they get up, go to work, come home, etc. and expect people to read your story.
Consider that when it’s used as an adjective, “novel” means interesting: new, unusual: this gives you a hint that your novel mustn’t be boring. When you’re writing fiction, you’re writing about people with problems, so create people with problems. When they act to solve their problems they’ll plot for you.
Let’s look at some steps to make plotting simple.
1. Plot: create a character with a BIG problem
Creating characters is simple — and it’s fun, too.
Here’s my favorite character-creation template to make it super-simple:
• Name
• Age
• Occupation
• Attribute
• Primary external problem
Fill in the information without thinking about it too much — do it now.
Without any thought at all, I came up with:
• Name: Rosemary Wilson
• Age: 21
• Occupation: Florist
• Attribute: Ambitious
• Primary external problem: she delivers flowers to a house with a dead woman on the front porch. She realizes that the woman is her ex’s fiancée.
Does poor Rosemary have a problem? She might have. What if it turns out that the fiancée got her fired, and that she and the fiancée had a loud public argument?
2. Tell the reader: “who, what, and why”
Create your character and give him/ her a problem, and make it a BIG problem.
You’ve got your WHO. In our example, the WHO is Rosemary Wilson. We’ve also got a WHAT — the dead woman. Now we need a WHY.
Why’s the woman dead? Who killed her?
(Thanks to Debra Dixon for Who, What, and Why, from her book GMC: Goal, Motivation, and Conflict. )
3. Conflict happens with people, so create more people
To discover your WHY, create another character.
In the first 25% of your fiction, you’re in the setup phase of your novel, novella, or short story. You can create as many characters as you need. (You can remove them later if you don’t need them, or consolidate characters if you wish.)
When you create characters, remember conflict — don’t create a bunch of people who all get along. Follow the character creation template above, and give them ALL problems. Other characters’ problems may develop into a subplot or two.
Give your characters the freedom to grow your plot
Fiction is about people with problems; plotting is much easier when you let your characters do it.
So give your characters the freedom to plot for you...
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