Chapter One: What's a Plot anyway?

write n words every day.

The reading experience moves people through a story. Plot is the power grid
for that motion.
Some plot questions:
What is this story about?
Is anything happening?
Why should I keep reading?
Why should I care?
Q: "Can't I just create a fascinating character and see what happens?"
A: "What happens" is the plot.
A reader picks up a story and remains in her own world, no point picking up the
book in the first place.
The reader seeks an experience that is other (than his real world exp). A good
story transports the reader to a new place, via the experience of your
characters creating an illusion that life is taking place on the page. 'the
fictive dream'. When we dream, we experience that as reality.
Plot and structure puts readers into the Dream and keeps them there.
Story is how readers dream. Donald Maas in "Writing the breakout novel"
"There is only one reason, and one reason only, that readers get excited about
a novel - great storytelling"
Like playing chess, with plotting a novel, there are a few basics, that if
understood and applied, help you come up with a solid plot every time.
The rest is hard work and practice.
foundational principles- LOCK - Lead, Objective, Confrontation, Knockout
Lead (Character) - a compelling someone we are *compelled to watch* throughout
the book. Not necessarily sympathetic or nice.
Objective - a guy with a "Will Work for Food" sign is not interesting.
But if he puts the sign down and starts climbing the Empire State Building,
interest zooms. Why? Now he has an objective.
An objective, or want, or desire is the driving force of fiction. It generates
forward motion and keeps the Lead from sitting around.
An objective can take two forms - get something, or get away from something.
The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon is about a girl lost in the woods who desperately
wants to get back to civilization.
In Jaws, Brody desperately wants to get the shark.
In Rose Madder, Rose wants to get away from her psycho husband.
In The Firm,Mitch McDeere wants to get away from the Mafia.
Solid plots have one and only one dominant objective for the Lead character.
This forms the "Story Question" - "Will the Lead acheive his objective?"

Key: You want the reader to worry about the Story Question so the objective
has to be vital to the well being of the LC. If the LC doesn't realize the
objective (get something or get away from something) his life should take
a tremendous turn for the worse.
key: objective should be CRUCIAL to LC's well being. Need not be a matter of
life and death. Oscar's need to be sloppy to stay sane is enough.
Conflict: other characters and outside conditions that work to prevent the LC
achieving his Objective. NY Police Dept, Mad Sniper on opposite building.
Knockout: aka resolution. The LC achieves the objective or not. The ending,
which is where the resolution takes place, should be very powerful.
Character Driven Story vs Plot Driven Story isn't a useful characterization.
*All* plots are character driven. Without a compelling character, no amount of
action can save the plot.
'formula' as akin to a recipe for making an omelette. same for all cooks.
what distinguishes one cook from another (using the same recipe for making
an omelette is spices and timing and small twists). A writer's 'spices' are
characters, setting, dialogue, scene selection etc.
Miscellaneous Hints: Dialogue as reflective of character (and character
differences)
A story is life with the boring parts taken out.
From Jim Butcher's Writing Advice
Conflict exists in infinite forms, and need not (necessarily) involve explosions
or blood. A mobster kicking down the door and spraying bullets is one kind of
conflict, sure. But a well-intentioned relative determined to sway your
character from his goal is, too. So is a boss who refuses to give your
character the day off to pick up his sick kid from school.
he story skeleton is a description of the main plot of your book, broken down
into its simplest elements. It's two sentences long. Neither sentence is
particularly long. Your plot needs to fit into that framework, or it's going to
be too complicated for the average newbie writer to handle well.
"Impossible," I said to myself when Debbie told us that in class.
"There's no way you can break down a story as epic as mine into two sentences.
You can't possibly do that." As it turned out, I could.
If I hadn't been able to do it, it would have been way too much story for me.
The story skeleton (also called a story question) consists of a simple format:
*WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS*, *YOUR PROTAGONIST* *PURSUES A GOAL*.
But will he succeed when *ANTAGONIST PROVIDES OPPOSITION*?
For instance, look at Storm Front.
(Yes, I'll use my own books as examples, because I'm just that way. ;)
Also, I'm more familiar with them than I am with almost any other writer.)
Storm Front's story question:
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When a series of grisly supernatural murders tears through Chicago,

wizard Harry Dresden sets out to find the killer.
But will he succeed when he finds himself pitted against a dark wizard,
a Warden of the White Council, a vicious gang war, and the Chicago Police
Department?
****************************
Chapter Two: Structure - What holds your plot together.
Structure == what assembles the parts of a story to make them accessible to
readers.
plot is about *elements* - things that go into a story.
structure is about *timing* - where (temporally) those elements go
Three Act Structure
Character is confronted with a problem. They react. This is Act 1
Character wrestles with problem - Act 2
Character resolves problem - Act 3
Beginnings (aka Act1) are about the who of a story. Connect the LC with the
reader asap. "Robin Hood Went Riding and saw a bad guy"
More specifically beginnings
(1) introduce the LC
(2) present story world (and establish LC in it)
(3) establish tone of the story
(4) compel reader to move on to the middle
(5) Introduce the opposition. Who or what wants to stop the lead?
Middles are about
(1) confrontation - a series of battles between the LC and the Antagonis
t.
"They fought"
(2) Subplots - adding complexity and subplots
(3) Deepen character relationships
(4) Keep us caring about what happens
(5) set up the ending.
Endings
(1) gives resolution of the big story. "They Won"
(2) ties up all loose ends
(3) Gives a feeling of resonance. What does the story *mean*?
The Mythical Structure, aka The Hero's Journey can be seen as a specialization
of the Three Act Structure
Act 1:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)

Readers are introduced to the Hero's world.

A 'call to adventure' or disturbance interrupts Hero's World.
The Hero may ignore the call (with bad consequences)
The Hero crosses the treshhold into a dark world.

Act 2
(5) A mentor may appear to teach the Hero
(6) Various encounters with the forces of darkness
(7) The Hero must have a dark moment within himself that he must overco

me
(8) A Talisman can aid in battle.
Act 3
(9) The final battle is fought.
(10) The Hero returns to his world (as a changed person)
Disturbance and Two Doorways
In the beginning of Act 1, you introduce the LC living a certain life - in
mythical terms this is the Hero's 'ordinary world'.
This is the place he will stay unless something forces him to change. The
'something' that disturbse the 'ordinary world' status quo is called
'the disturbance'.
'the disturbance' has to be some kind of threat, but not necessarily a major
threat.
Dean Koontz usually begins "The Door to December"
"As soon as she finished dressing, Laura went to the front door, just in time to
see the L.A. Police Department squad car pull to the curb in front of the house"
a police car pulling in is a small disturbance, but it does jolt the LC out of
the complacent everyday existence.
From the structural standpoint, the initial disturbance creates reader interest,
promising an interesting story yet to come. The main plot is not yet active
because there is no sign of the Adversary and LC and Adv are not locked in
combat.
The number of possible disturbances is endless. Here are some examples:
A phone call in the middle of the night
A letter with some intriguing news
The boss calling the character into his office
A child being taken to the hospital
The car breaking down in a desert town
The Lead winning the lottery
The Lead witnessing an accidentor a murder
A note from the Leads wife (or husband), who is leaving
Star Wars has an action prologue (SA: As does GRRM s Game of Thrones)
(after the prologue) we meet the LC Luke SkyWalker in his ordinary state of
existence on his home world of Tatooine where his uncle buys two robots.
Within 5 minutes - we have the disturbance, with Luke discovering Leia s
appeal for help addressed to Ben Kenobi.
Luke shows the hologram to Kenobi (lots of action in the middle!) who asks
Luke to help - the "call to action". Luke refuses CTA because he can t leave his
aunt and uncle. The CTA is not the doorway into Act 2 because Luke *can*
continue his pre disturbance life. When the Empire kills his uncle and aunt
*then* Luke is thrust into the Rebellion (therefore this event is the door way
to Act 2 because now there is no way Luke can continue his old life.)

Doorways:
How you get from Act 1 to Act 2, and later from Act 2 to Act 3 are
transitions/plot points/ doorways of no return .
Through Door#1
In order to get from beginning to middle, you must create a doorway that
thrusts the LC into the main conflict *and keeps him there*. Iow, the door
closes behind the LC, leaving him in a state of conflict with the Antagonist.
Now he either emerges victorious or is defeated. There is no going back to
ordinary life .
Professional Duty can be this doorway. A lawyer taking up a case, or a cop
investigating a murder is duty bound to see it through.
Moral duty also works.If a parent has his child kidnapped, he has a strong
imperative to search for and recover the child.
The key question is this: Can my LC walk away from the plot right now and go on
as he has before? If the answer is yes, you don t have a doorway yet.
Book I of The Godfather ends with that transition.Michael shoots the
Dons enemy, Sollozzo, and the crooked cop,McCluskey. Now Michael can
never go straight again. Hes in the conflict up to his eyeballs. He cannot walk
away from his choices.
It is crucial to understand the difference between the disturbance and the first
doorway.
e.g: Die Hard
cop meets ex wife in a skyscraper. Terrorist take over the building (this is the
disturbance). Cop escapes to an upper floor.
This is not yet door 1 because the cop can escape the building and call in help.
He is not locked in combat against the terrorists (who are unaware of him).later
he witnesses murder of CEO. (this is still not Door #1 for reasons above).
He later sets off a fire alarm, notifying the terrorists they have an enemy
loose in the building. THIS is the doorway.
SA: by this definition though, Luke Skywalker is not thru doorway1 when
his aunt and uncle are killed. The empire doesn t know he exists. I suspect
here the "hide in a lift shaft and stay out of the terrorist s awareness" is the
"ordinary life", which is irrevocably destroyed when he pulls the fire alarm.
Door #2
Middle to end: Something huge happens that inevitably sets up the final
confrontation. Usually it is a major clue or reveal of a deadline,
or major incident, setback or crisis, that hurtles the LC towards the final
confrontation.
In The Godfather, the Dons death is a setback to peace among the mafia
families. It emboldens the enemies of the Corleone family, forcing Michael
to unleash a torrent of death to establish his power once and for all.
Note: There is NO going back through door 2 to the status of Act 2.
a summary of plot and structure

These basic plot and structure elements will never fail you.
A plot is about a Lead character who has an objective, something crucial
to his well-being. The major portion of plot is the confrontation with the
opposition, a series of battles over the objective. This is resolved in a
knockout ending, an outcome that satisfies the story questions and the readers.
A solid plot unfolds in three actsa beginning, middle, and end.
In the beginning, we get to know the Lead, his world, the tone of the
story to come.We have some sort of disturbance in the beginning to keep
away the dull parts.
We move into the middle through a doorway of no return, an incident
that thrusts the Lead into conflict with the opposition.We need some sort of
adhesive to keep them together, something like professional or moral duty, or
a physical location. Deathphysical, professional or psychologicalis often
a real possibility until the conflict is settled. Some setback or crisis, or dis
covery
or clue, pushes the Lead through the second doorway of no return.
Now all the elements are there to get to that final battle or final choice
thats going to end the story.