Aloha young writers! Our lesson this week is on plot: what is it and how to create one.
First, I'd like to describe what I mean by plot by contrasting it with story. Although we sometimes use these words interchangeably, they aren't the same thing.
Story describes change. It focuses on character experience, on outcome. For example, in a "Cinderella story" some poor, downtrodden individual gets a lucky break and then all dreams come true. A typical love story consists of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl in the end. Or maybe girl meets boy, girl discovers boy is some kind of strange sparkly vampire, girl likes him anyways (go figure).
Plot, on the other hand, is in the details. How exactly does the narrative go from point A to point B? Stories can be recycled again and again by the infinite possibilities of plot. Who is our Cinderella? What is this person's dream? How does the lucky break come about? These questions are answered by the plot.
One of our club members said, "So story is like muscle and plot is like the bones." This is especially true in understanding how both need to be strong. You can have a perfectly plotted but weak story. It will just lie there and languish. On the other hand, without a sturdy plot, you've got a story blob.
If you have to sacrifice one for the other, then go with story. Bones are great, but you can do without them. Think about what an octopus does with muscle alone.
So, back to plot. You, the author, are a story travel agent. A story walks into your head and says, "I want to go from Seattle to New Orleans." Now it is your job to create an itinerary. Drive to the airport, hop on a plane? Go by bus? Go by train? Stop in Denver, Salt Lake, Dallas, or Oklahoma City? The how, when, and where of the journey is the plot.
There are two main ways to create a plot. You as the story travel agent may say to the story, "Get in, I'll take you there!" and you hop in the car in Seattle and drive in a general south-east direction. Eventually you'll hit the Gulf Coast... hopefully... and then you can drive around a bit until you get to New Orleans. You and your story can have a thrilling adventure.You never know what you may discover along the way. You may end up in Galveston instead and your story could decide that Galveston is where it really wanted to be all along.
On the other hand, you can get out the maps, schedules, and brochures, and carefully plan a route. See Yellowstone park on the way. Pick out every road, hotel, diner, and rest-stop. This way, you know exactly where your story will go and what it will take to get there.
Most writers find a balance between these two methods. I usually have a general destination in mind, with major plot points planned along the way, but I love to take my story on scenic routes. If I see a roadside state park, I'll turn off the highway, get out of the car, peel off my shoes and socks, and go wading in the nearest stream. I like to stop in the desert in the middle of the night, get out, and stare at the stars. These moments of exploration and wonder are what I write for, moments of unexpected revelation, when the story can tell me what it's really about.
Now, to finish up, a few words on basic plot structure:
A plot begins with an exposition. This establishes the starting point of the story. What state is the character in at the beginning of the journey? At some point there's an inciting action, which prompts the character to begin a process of change. After that comes the rising action, where the character meets mounting resistance to the needed change. Things get worse and worse until it appears that all is lost, and then something happens to turn it all around, and clear the way for the character to achieve change. This turn-around point is the climax. After that comes resolution, as the character actually steps into the new order of things, and the denouement, where the character's new resting state is established, or at least hinted at.
Happy plotting! Keep writing!
In my film class, we actually talk quite a bit about the difference between story and plot, and I find these definitions extremely helpful, not only for movies but also for writing.
ReplyDeletePlot is everything visibly and audibly present in a film, and story is all the events in a narrative, explicit and inferred.
In other words, for writing, plot is everything that gets written down. Story is the umbrella that holds everything. Maybe your character has a secret(ish) past that gets hinted at maybe one sentence in the book, but you never explicitly refer to it. That past is in the story, but it's not in the plot. To expand the trip metaphor, that may have been a side trip or an earlier trip that never got mentioned.
For example, in Harry Potter, we know that Harry spent several years getting mistreated by the Dursleys, but we don't go through all 10 years of that in the plot. It's part of the story.
That's an excellent point, Carina. I was thinking today that story is also more flexible. You can take the same story and tell it in a book or a movie equally. But when you make a book into a film you have to change the plot to fit the media. You can change the story too, if you want to, but a good book plot is probably not going to be a good movie plot and vice versa.
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