Don't Lose the Plot

Find it first

Hi friends,

I’ve been talking to a lot of clients lately about how to find the plot in what they’re working on. Some have written books before and some haven’t, but it doesn’t matter either way. When you start a new project, specifically a novel but not exclusively, you have to start for scratch, no matter what. What you learned writing your previous thing comes in handy, yes, but every book is different and you have to write them in different ways.

But I, as a self-proclaimed know-it-all, wanted to tell my clients how *I* think they should get started, using what *I* have learned from writing a few books, because I know it works for me. It’s loose enough advice so that they can make it their own, but I personally think it’s a good way to make sure that something actually happens in your book, that it has stakes, that it has something for readers to invest in. Your book might be full of plot or lean on plot, but regardless, something has to happen.

In this example, I’m using a binary structre: one character in opposition to another character, but maybe yours is one character against an organization or a family against an outsider or whatever. See? Loose. But for each entity, I first figure out:

1. What they want

2. How they are going to (or not going to) get it

3. What happens if they do (or don’t) get it.

When you have two entities wanting two (or whatever) things, and you place them in opposition to each other where one’s wants thwart the other’s, boom you have a plot. The entites’ wants should intersect in some way because if not, you’re just writing two short stories in parallel. One doesn’t have to be the hero and one doesn’t have to be the villian, but sometimes that works out. There’s a lot more that goes into setting up those wants and getting or not getting things and THAT is what creates the step-by-step of your plot. But when you figure out the big things, it guides you toward the little things.

It also helps you see pretty quickly if your stakes are high enough. Because if it’s not a big deal when character A doesn’t get what they want, well, then why is the reader spending hours and hours reading about this thing those doesn’t matter? Your stakes aren’t high enough and you have to rethink it. Who cares if character A doesn’t get those shoes on sale? No stakes.

There are a lot of other things that go into creating a novel, but I find that if I start here, with stakes and wants and getting or not getting things, I have a broad roadmap of where the book is going, and then I can have fun filling in the details of how they get there. And I don’t spend weeks writing tens of thousands of words on characters no one is going to care about (but me). I do not have time to waste, bascially ever. And you probably don’t either.

But just because this is simple doesn’t mean it’s fast. I’ll sometimes spend a week or two figuring these things out. I’ll write out the dumbest wants and gettings or not gettings, just to get them out of my brain. Maybe Character A gets pregnant. Maybe Character A becomes a monk. Maybe Character A moves away. Whatever comes to mind. It also helps me clear away the low hanging fruit. There are a lot of easy or common plotlines that come to mind, and I don’t want to reach for those right away. You might be writing in a genre where the common or expected plotline is the point, and if so, you can ignore this part. But if that’s not you, try to move past the first thing you think of and see if anything else is out there. I think that’s what helps set some novels apart.

There are probably 100 other ways to outline or plan out a novel, but I like this one. I hope this works for you. If it doesn’t, that’s ok, too. Good luck if you’re starting something new!

Stay safe, stay home, wash your hands.

OXOXOX,

Kate