A Plot Story Deluxe
A plot arises out of the actions and interactions of the characters.
Granted, the more over the top the story plot is, you would expect extra care with the logistics of minor events. Would be a Deluxe present The any Onion reader. Bill Willingham's hit series Fables continues here, for the first time in hardcover. In the aftermath of the Adversary's attack on Fabletown, Fables: The Deluxe Edition, Book Five follows Boy Blue on a mission of revenge as he uncovers the Adversary's true identity! The second deluxe edition of the Fables series collects a few short stories in the series as well as a longer story dealing with Bluebeard and his attempts to get rid of Snow and Wolf. We start with Bag o'Bones, a story about Jack, set during the American civil war. It's a fun piece showing off Jack in full trickster and shyster mode as he.
On the whole, you need at least two characters to create a plot. Add even more characters to the mix, and you’ll have possibilities for more than one plot.
Most stories consist of more than one plot. Each such plot is a self-contained storyline.
The Central Plot
Often there is a central plot and at least one subplot. The central plot is usually the one that arcs across the entire narrative, from the onset of the external problem (the “inciting incident” for one character) to its resolution. This is the plot that is at the forefront of the story, on its most obvious, visible and therefore external layer. For instance, the central plot of a crime story traces the events to do with the detective solving the case. In an adventure story about the search for a treasure, the chain of events from the moment the treasure is first mentioned to its being placed in its final destination is the central plot. That’s why the central plot is often what a story is described as being about.
Subplot – The Love Story
There is likely to be at least one subplot. Classically, this begins around about the time the protagonist commits properly to the central plot – by devoting him or herself to solving the case or finding the treasure. In other words, once the hero has set off on the story journey. At about this point in the narrative, a particular character may appear or become suddenly more relevant.
Initial conflicts notwithstanding, this new interest is ultimately likely to help the protagonist on an emotional level. The conflicts and obstacles to be overcome may be hindrances that arise out of misunderstanding, rather than out of antagonism. And they may come to a head at a final moment of dilemma, where the protagonist has to make a moral choice which will have direct consequences for the central plot.
Though prone to cliché, this plotline has a vital role in making the story as a whole work, because it shows the protagonist growing as a human being, i.e. developing into a mature, self-aware and socially fully responsible person. This classic plotline is the love story.
Subplot – The B-Plot
If you look at TV series, especially the now somewhat old-fashioned type where each episode is a self-contained story (think sitcoms like The Simpsons or shows like The A-Team), you’ll notice that they almost invariably feature two parallel stories, the central plot and the B-plot. This design principle has several functions. For one thing, the viewer is less likely to grow bored – the variation creates liveliness and allows the authors to place cliffhangers. Having a B-plot also creates possibilities for contrast and juxtaposition, which makes for satisfying effects such as irony or humour.
The Power Of Four
The convention of telling a second plot “under”, or rather intertwined with, the central plot also has a lot to do with the power of four in storytelling. You may have observed that innumerable stories are built around four main characters – for example The Simpsons, The A-Team, Sex and the City, Stand By Me, When Harry Met Sally, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and many more.
Constructing a story around four characters is by no means a rule, but it automatically entails that you have several parallel sets of relationships going on. In terms of scenes, while character A is interacting with character B, character C is free to interact with character D. This allows for “cross-cutting” effects to achieve interesting contrasts, variation and juxtaposition.
We’ll go into the reasons why the power of four is so pervasive in storytelling elsewhere.
Storylines And Plot Structure
In particularly well-crafted stories, each storyline echoes the others, for instance by treating the same overarching theme but showing it in a different light, from another perspective. If, for example, the theme is about the necessity for reform, then one plot may concentrate on the political reform of an organisation while another plot shows the reform process of an individual.
Furthermore, each storyline must go through the stages common to all plots. That is, a storyline must cover the entire range from the advent of a problem through commitment to the attempt to solve it, the task which arises out of that commitment, the story journey towards the goal with the aim of getting to the circumstance, situation, or state that is wanted, but first having to overcome various obstacles, and possibly having a moment of revelation leading to a learning effect. So a subplot may be less intricate than a central plot, but structurally it works along similar lines.
When children tell stories, they tend to string events together with “and then”. However, far more important than narrative sequence is the reason for the sequence. When you shape your story, put all the events of one filtered out storyline into the narrative order and link each causally. String the events of a storyline together with “because of that” instead of “and then”.
Subplot storylines are most satisfying when they cover the course of the story at roughly the same pace as the central plot, and overlap with it a key moments. When done really well, the final resolution will be one single plot event which brings each storyline to a conclusion. If that is not possible, then the subplots will come to their resolution very shortly after the climax of the central plot.
Related function in the Beemgee story development tool:
Storylines
See also:
- Video: How to use the FILTER Highlight and Filter (i.e. find) Your Plot Input...
- Relationships Between Characters, Part 3: Partnership Stories tend to show characters getting together. Stories don’t get ...read more...
- Internal Obstacles In stories, characters are faced with obstacles. These obstacles come ...read more...
Learning how to develop a story so that you take readers on an unforgettable journey is key to becoming a great novelist. Here are 10 steps to ensure that the final draft of your book has a winning, memorable plot:
Step 1: Study effective examples of plot development
Reading is a great way to improve at any stage of the writing process because great writers give us inspiring examples of how to get each element of craft right.
Some writers are particularly noted for their command of plot. Even if their work lies outside of your usual genre interests, read their novels for insights. While you do so, keep a reading journal and note effective elements of their storytelling. Ask, for example:
- How do the characters in the novel change over time?
- What is the main sequence of events (what happens in the novel and when?)
- What are the locations the story takes place in? What benefit does each setting offer to the overall story structure and development?
A few experts of story development you could read: John le Carré, J.R.R. Tolkien (whose Lord of the Rings has been voted the best single plot arc in a multi-novel series), Terry Pratchett, and Stephen King. You can read the work of contemporary bestselling authors for insights (particularly regarding what is marketable). Yet many classic authors (e.g. Charles Dickens and Henry James) are equally good at taking story premises and propelling them through interesting and surprising twists and turns.
Step 2: Use a plotting process that will shape your story
Great plots begin with curiosity and good ideas.
It helps if your story begins with an intriguing hypothetical situation (for example, the premise of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-four: A tyrannical political regime has criminalized independent thought as ‘thoughtcrime’). A good story idea should be fleshed out through a focused plotting process that will shape your story, however.
Use Now Novel’s story outlining tool to brainstorm great story ideas and create a detailed outline from start to finish.
Developing a detailed summary is a useful exercise for letting ideas for characters and plot points grow and settle. You might depart from your outline substantially while you draft. Even so, the exercise will help you start thinking about your book as a connected whole.
Step 3: Create a timeline of your novel’s plot events
Developing a story is easier when you understand the ‘when’ of your story.
As an exercise, create a timeline of your novel’s plot events. Make each branch in your timeline a chapter, with a summary of the most basic plot details. For example, ‘Main character learns identity of parents, prepares to try find them.’)
If you aren’t intending to plot your entire novel in advance, create a timeline all the same. Fill it out in summary form as you draft so that you have a condensed visual reference for recalling where your story has lead you so far, and what the overarching flow of events looks like.
Having a document such as this helps you to navigate between the detail-oriented process of drafting scenes and chapters, and the structural challenge of seeing the greater picture.
Step 4: Make characters develop in intriguing ways
Once you’ve done all of the above, it’s time to start thinking about how your character(s) will develop.
At the start of writing a novel, identify each primary character’s main goals.
Start brainstorming how these coupled with personality traits could lead them to develop.
A shy college student who wants to become a leading scholar, for example, might encounter a lecturer with whom he establishes an uncommon, lasting friendship. Obstacles to the character reaching his goals could include scholarship woes or false accusations of plagiarism.
You can create detailed ideas for characters simply by following the prompts in the ‘Character’ section of Now Novel’s story dashboard.
Whatever your story idea, make your characters develop in interesting ways. Show how their wants (or fears) affect their choices. Show the consequences that lead from there.
Step 5: Make each of the ‘5 W’s’ change
In novel-writing and journalism alike, a ‘story’ is made up of the ‘5 w’s’ – ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘why’, ‘where’ and ‘when’. Who are the important characters in your story? What is the situation they find themselves in and why? Where and when does the story take place?
A great story doesn’t just contain satisfying answers for these five questions. It also shows some development in each of these areas.
Your main character could be a trainee policewoman living in a rural community, for example. She’s considering giving up her career path because she finds small town life stifling. Suddenly, a local triple homicide ropes her into the most daunting (as well as thrilling) elements of police work.
The ‘who’ can change: Perhaps the trainee toughens up and becomes highly competent in her job as a result.
The ‘what’ (her goal) can shift: She realizes her calling is serving her community, and this could be because of new, meaningful interactions and relationships she forms in the course of doing her police work.
She might eventually leave for the big city, too (a change in ‘where’), wiser and more experienced.
If you make each of these elements of plot change convincingly, you’ll take the reader on a journey and will have developed your story.
One way to make sure this development happens is to storyboard your book:
Step 6: Outline scenes to create a storyboard
Whether you use index cards or other small pieces of paper such as post-its, a storyboard is a useful device for developing your story.
Try to summarize the key events of each scene in as little as two lines, which of your characters it will involve, and what the scene’s purpose is.
You can do all this in the Scene Builder tool in the Now Novel dashboard, and import it to view alongside your working document using our free Google Docs plugin.
As you plot your novel and plan your story development, you can reorder scenes as your story dictates, until you have a sequence of scenes that makes sense to you.
Sometimes you’ll find the order of two or more scenes should be reversed. Other times you might find that an early scene might be better shifted towards the end of the story due to its content or mood. This process will help you make your story flow and develop smoothly.
Step 7: Learn how to develop a story using subplots
A subplot is a secondary or subordinate plot that supports your main story arc.
To use a well-known example, in Harper Lee’s famous novel To Kill a Mockingbird, the children’s fascination with their mysterious, reclusive neighbour Arthur ‘Boo’ Radley (and their eventual encounter with him) is a subplot to the main story (a trial exposing race politics in which the children’s father Atticus is involved).
In Lee’s book, events involving Boo Radley support the main arc. The children receive a practical lesson through their encounters with Boo. They learn that inventing fantastical stories about others and turning them into bogeymen is a dubious alternative to confronting fear of the unknown and getting ‘the whole story’ about a person. In this way, Lee uses her subplot to underscore the issues at heart of the story’s central legal trial.
Step 8: Incorporate character-driven and action-driven story elements
‘Change’ is what propels a story forward. It’s brought about by character-driven and action-driven scenes.
In a thriller novel, for example, character-driven scenes show reader the stakes (the main character’s loving relationship with their child, for example). This makes action-driven sequences such as high-speed chases all the more nail-biting and intense since we are aware of all the personal, cherished things driving the main character’s will to survive.
To develop your story satisfyingly, make sure you balance character-driven scenes with action driven ones.
A Plot Story Deluxe
Even if you are writing something less dramatic and violent such as a regency romance, the same applies. Show scenes where your main characters undertake mainly action-based activities – a carriage or train ride, for example. Use these as points of transition between scenes that deepen and grow your characters.
As you write and near the end of your first draft, it’s useful to ask questions about story development so you can decide whether or not your story shows enough growth and change:
Step 9: Ask yourself important questions about story development
Once you’ve written the bulk of your novel, ask yourself these questions about your story’s development:
- How have the main characters changed in the course of the story?
- Why have they changed?
- What have the characters (and readers) learned about the story’s central situation or premise that they didn’t know at the start?
- What are the core themes of the story? (For example: ‘Triumph over adversity’, or ‘the danger of obsession’)
Once you have answers to the above, keep them in mind while revising. Is there any point in the story where a small tweak could make these elements more apparent?
Perhaps your main character’s growth isn’t as clear as you would like. Or else there hasn’t been enough change or development to illustrate your central theme. Keeping track of your plot – not just what happens but the reasons for plot events as well as their consequences – will help you create a more satisfying story.
Step 10: Get helpful feedback on your story arc
Once you’ve looked over your plot and are satisfied that your story develops compellingly, share your work with other writers for helpful feedback. Get peer feedback from other writer’s for free in our critique forum, or work with a writing coach who will guide you as you resolve any patches or holes in your plot.