PLOT DEVELOPMENT in Creative Nonfiction

As a beginning non-fiction writer, you may not know that consciously creating a narrative nonfiction plot structure is
key to delivering a good read. You will bore your readers to death if you repeat fact after fact. You want to organize
all your research and information into a coherent and compelling whole. Basically, you need to tell a story.

Types of Plot Development

Overcoming the Monster

The protagonist must defeat a monster or force in order to save some people—usually everybody! Most often, the
protagonist is forced into this conflict, and comes out of it as a hero, or even a king.
The Quest
The protagonist embarks on a quest involving travel and dangerous adventures in order to find treasure or solve a
huge problem. Usually, the protagonist is forced to begin the quest but makes friends that help face the many tests
and obstacles along the way.
Tragedy
The protagonist experiences a conflict which leads to very bad ending, typically death.
Rebirth
The protagonist is a villain who becomes a good person through the experience of the story’s conflict.

Creating a Narrative Plot for Nonfiction

Depending on where you look or who you talk to, you may hear about three-act, four-act, and five-act structures.
Every story, including a true story, has a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is the basic tenet of the three-act
narrative plot structure. These three acts are the set-up, the confrontation, and the resolution.

The Setup
During the setup, you’re setting the scene.
 You introduce the protagonist who is the main character or champion of your main idea. In business
nonfiction, for example, you are likely to be your own protagonist.
 You'll introduce the protagonist's world and what makes them tick..
 Then you'll describe the event that sets everything else in motion.
 Next, describe the protagonist’s decision to react to that event, which is essentially the decision to embark
on their journey. This is usually the first plot point.
The Confrontation
The confrontation part of the story is normally the longest part, comprising fully half of the manuscript. This is where
the protagonist sets out on their journey and encounters obstacles along the way.
 You introduce other main characters, including the main antagonist who isn’t always a person.
 You may describe the problem you've encountered and that you are about to solve, or explain how to
address challenging customer demands.
 There will be some kind of major conflict about midway through: a big obstacle or setback that the
protagonist experiences. You draw battle lines and the action, or intensity, increases.
The Resolution
The final act – that of resolution – takes up the last quarter or so of the story.
 Here's the climax, where the protagonist and antagonist face off.
 After things have calmed down, you tie up the loose ends and release the tension..
 You also emphasize the theme of the story and the lesson learned.

In nonfiction, you’re writing about events and circumstances in real life. They don't always happen in such a clean,
formulaic way. It’s perfectly fine to use the above formula as a guide and make it work for the story you're telling.
There are, of course, other ways to approach your narrative plot structure.

Other Ways to Think About Beginning, Middle, End

 Manipulate Time
Say, for instance, that you want to tell the story of someone accused of a crime they didn't commit fighting
for justice. Following the chronological three-act narrative plot, the crime itself will come somewhere in the
 middle of the book. However, your readers may have lost interest by then, wading through the person’s
childhood and events that may seem irrelevant. You want to draw your readers in as soon as you can, so
start the book with the person’s wrongful arrest. There will have been events that have led up to this
moment and the reason authorities accused this person of the crime, though. The solution is to manipulate
time. You can use flashbacks, for instance, to describe the crime itself, the reason your protagonist was in
the wrong place at the wrong time, the police investigation, and so on. Your story will still have a beginning,
a middle, and an end, but not in a chronological order.

 Circular Structure
Another option is to use a circular structure. Here you start with the climatic event that concludes the story.
In our example, you may start your book with the day that the person is finally exonerated of the crime.
It’s similar to the inverted pyramid structure of a newspaper article, where you start with the most
important pieces.

However, unlike a newspaper article, you don’t give all the information right away. You want the reader to
keep on reading to find out how things have led to this point and what the lesson is. So, you hold back. You
start with the climactic event but you don’t elaborate too much. Then you use flashbacks to go back to the
beginning. You always move the story forward, through the middle and on to the climax. After the climax,
you tie up the loose ends.
 Multiple Narratives
Often there are two or more narratives in non-fiction that are equally important. For example, let's say you
are writing about an issue like immigration. You want to reveal how different events in different countries
have led to people’s need to leave their homes. Each country or each cause of immigration will have a
different narrative plot.

So what do you do in such a case? Think about the movies of Robert Altman: he tells several parallel stories
that may intertwine. Every parallel story has a beginning and a middle. At the end, they all flow together.
You can use a similar technique in your book: telling each separate story, maybe interweaving them and
moving them towards the climax: immigration today. Then you picture the way forward to bring the story to
a conclusion.