Plot Arcs

[WarLordwrites]

Greetings

I write longer form stories in a serial format, posting the chapters at interval. This leads me to ponder plotting and plot arc as I build my narrative, piece by piece

What is "Plot Arc?"

Think of the show '24' each episode builds in an arc to a conclusion and then each episode builds, one on another, to a season finale.

That is how I visulize my narrative - in its most ideal form - smaller episodic chapter plots that build into a larger overall story plotting with its own conclusion.

Keeping in mind that it is of course an inexact science, I offer it as my $0.02.

Enjoy the journey

WarLord

 

[wanderwonder]

As someone who struggles with the same issue, I think you have the right idea. Our job is to give the reader a reason to keep coming back for more, which they'll only do if there are tantalizing questions left unanswered. A great series is like a symphony—there are arches and dips throughout the piece, but the overarching theme keeps the listeners (or readers) on the edge of their seats until the end. Ever been to a concert featuring one of Brahms' symphonies? When the conductor finally lowers his arms, the whole audience will release a poignant yet satisfied "Ahh." Every time, every concert. Then they go and buy a recording of the piece so they can get that communal "ah" over and over. That's what I want to do with my stories. Give everyone who reads it the opportunity to release a an "ah."

 

[jomar]

Yes. That's my attempt in my Chase Cooder cliffhanger story.

 

[Otto26]

I tend to think of it as wheels within wheels. More precisely, characters going about their personal business and contributing to the overall story. But that's just how I think of it.

 

[Jedikool]

actaully, mentioning 24, thots how i think of my story, as a TV series. Simply have things that happen to the charactors that will affect them latre on in other chapters. sometimes cliffhangers work for this. i just wrote a cliffhanger for my third chapter, sort of, for my story Sorority. i plan on having the stroy stretch across one school year, and it will be leading up to certain events near the end, and will also deal with events taht have happened.

 

[palisa]

I agree with the concept, but being a quantitative sort of guy, I wonder how you can actually guage whether you are building the tension, for want of a better word, every time you add more to the story.

I guess what I'm groping for is the idea that every installment doesn't have to be a topper in relation to the segments that came before, as long as the story line remains interesting enough to bring readers back. Judging where you stop in a segment is important; you have to find middle ground between resolving nothing and resolving too much. There has to be something to suggest that the end of a segment is a natural stopping place, but not something that ties too much together and suggests the tale has been told.

In a similar vein, adding plot complexity as you go along can be good or it can poison your story by turning it into a bowl of spaghetti.

I suppose if all this were quantifiable, it would take all the art out of writing and replace it with science, like the software that's supposed to be able to predict what pop songs will hit the top 40.

 

[Jedikool]

I agree with the concept, but being a quantitative sort of guy, I wonder how you can actually guage whether you are building the tension, for want of a better word, every time you add more to the story.

I guess what I'm groping for is the idea that every installment doesn't have to be a topper in relation to the segments that came before, as long as the story line remains interesting enough to bring readers back. Judging where you stop in a segment is important; you have to find middle ground between resolving nothing and resolving too much. There has to be something to suggest that the end of a segment is a natural stopping place, but not something that ties too much together and suggests the tale has been told.

In a similar vein, adding plot complexity as you go along can be good or it can poison your story by turning it into a bowl of spaghetti.

I suppose if all this were quantifiable, it would take all the art out of writing and replace it with science, like the software that's supposed to be able to predict what pop songs will hit the top 40.

i agree that your segments themselves should have some sort of closure. Im all of my stories, i try to keep the chapters as sort of signle entitites which exist in the story as a whole. But taht being said, not everyone writes like this and that is fine too. Writing should not be defined to a singluar formula.

 

[Softouch911]

I guess what I'm groping for is the idea that every installment doesn't have to be a topper in relation to the segments that came before, as long as the story line remains interesting enough to bring readers back. Judging where you stop in a segment is important; you have to find middle ground between resolving nothing and resolving too much. There has to be something to suggest that the end of a segment is a natural stopping place, .

This is where structure comes in, isn't it? Another complex and difficult subject open to both interpretation and misunderstanding. To an extent, you have to "discover" it with each story. But, once discovered, it guides what you write, how much, when.

ST

 

[Jedikool]

again, its like a tv show. every seperate episode/cjhapter has its own structure within a larger strucute. there are stoy lines that continue throughout and storylines that only exist in taht segment.

 

[DarkBee]

When writing stories which belong to a serie, it's very important to write down the details about your characters and the things they do and don't. Also keep track of important and seemingly less important events that happened in earlier stories, so don't forget to re-read your own work every now and then, otherwise you'll get inconsistencies which will annoy some your readers (and it just looks stupid).

 

[Oblimo]

What is "Plot Arc?"

Three Acts, two Plot Points.

Act I (Introduction) --(plot point 1)--> Act II (Complication) --(plot point 2)--> Act III (Resolution)

That's the paradigm for a plot arc. All plots work this way, unless you are going for something deconstructive.

 

[DarkBee]

Three Acts, two Plot Points.

Act I (Introduction) --(plot point 1)--> Act II (Complication) --(plot point 2)--> Act III (Resolution)

That's the paradigm for a plot arc. All plots work this way, unless you are going for something deconstructive.

... or for something much, much longer, like a 7 or 8-story tale (I have written two of them, and both still aren't finished!).

 

[Oblimo]

... or for something much, much longer, like a 7 or 8-story tale (I have written two of them, and both still aren't finished!).

No, a seven or 8 story tale should follow the same structure, just be "fractal" -- each tale has three acts, and each tale itself fits into one of the three acts...unless you are being deconstructive.

You really can't escape it and still tell a conventional "story."

 

[aussie_101]

I agree with the concept, but being a quantitative sort of guy, I wonder how you can actually guage whether you are building the tension, for want of a better word, every time you add more to the story.

I guess what I'm groping for is the idea that every installment doesn't have to be a topper in relation to the segments that came before, as long as the story line remains interesting enough to bring readers back. Judging where you stop in a segment is important; you have to find middle ground between resolving nothing and resolving too much. There has to be something to suggest that the end of a segment is a natural stopping place, but not something that ties too much together and suggests the tale has been told.

In a similar vein, adding plot complexity as you go along can be good or it can poison your story by turning it into a bowl of spaghetti.

I suppose if all this were quantifiable, it would take all the art out of writing and replace it with science, like the software that's supposed to be able to predict what pop songs will hit the top 40.

At the risk of sounding simplistic... I write to keep myself interested. If I get to the end of the chapter and I need to keep writing, it's likely that a reader will want to keep reading.

Everybody else's more detailed responses in this thread are equally valid, of course. I guess I just don't think so hard into it.

 

[smotp]

They start out shorts but become series!

I have ideas for short pieces but I need to have a backstory in mind to flesh out the characters.

I want to know what happens next myself and if there is enough interest I write more; but each one is usually a complete piece of itself.

There is a rough outline in my mind of the overall tale but it frequently is changed by the characters as I write each 'chapter'!

In this way I seem to be getting a number of novelette length (50k words) pieces together. I suppose I should polish them and submitt them for e publishing?

I have taken most down from Lit but this one about stepsiblings is still active as I think about future episodes:

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=303257

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=308824

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=311344

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=317290


And these are two parts of the third episode of a interracial tale I am enjoying but have been distracted by other projects to wiite more:

http://www.literotica.com:81/stories/showstory.php?id=328571

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=342649

The interactive feedback process with Lit readers is very helpful and stimulating. I just wish the voting system was better policed to weed out Troll Bombers.

 

[Black Tulip]

So, I'm slow sometimes.

Let me see if I understand this correctly:

a three chapter story
chapter one has three acts, but is also plot point one in the overall
chapter two has three acts, but is plot point two as a whole
chapter three has three acts and serves as the conclusion.

If this is how it should be, I have my work cut out for me in dissecting an eight chapter story in the making.

 

[Oblimo]

No worries, I'm slow too.

The three act structure ain't anything mystical. It's like the "barebones" plot paradigm, simply because to show (or tell) an event to someone else, you have to a) set the scene and characters, b) show the action, then c) show the outcome. The actual number of chapters really don't mean squat, but in conventional storytelling, you first introduce your audience to some characters, then you get those characters into so some of sticky situation (an argument, a flirtatious exchange, a car chase, foreplay with the last condom breaking), and then they get themselves out of it.

Individual scenes work that way too, but the "getting out of the sticky situation" part isn't final. Instead, the resolution pulls the reader into the next event of the story. A scene accomplishes this by driving the plot forward or establishing characterization so that when a character makes a decision later on, the audience isn't left going "WTF?"

The best place to see this paradigm in action is a Hollywood blockbuster movie. They treat the paradigm like a it were Holy Writ, rather than a structure to play in.

Wow, did that make any sense?

 

[The_Fractal_King]

I tend to think of it as wheels within wheels. More precisely, characters going about their personal business and contributing to the overall story. But that's just how I think of it.

I've had the same thought. Which has lead me to wonder about writing interwoven plots between stories.

 

[Rob_mDear]

Boy Meets Girl

...you have to a) set the scene and characters, b) show the action, then c) show the outcome.

I think the best way to think of this is something that is familiar.

Boy meets girl.
Boy loses girl.
Boy gets girl.

The first sets the scene and the characters.
The second is the action (and the interesting part, and the conflict).
The last is the outcome.

Every story can be turned into this. Within each of these, they can also be broken down. There can also be side plots and sub-plots. When you mix it all together, it can seem complicated and involved, but everything really breaks down to three statements, like this one.

Boy meets girl.
Boy repeatedly pisses girl off.
Girl gets fed up and shoots boy.

Luke meets Obiwan and loses his guardians.
Luke learns to use the force.
Luke destroys the deathstar.

Frodo meets Gandalf and learns about the ring.
Frodo journeys to Mordor.
Frodo destroys the ring.

It's an interesting exercise for any writer to take his/her own work, current or in progress, and try to break it down and see the underlying structure, even when it wasn't consciously intended. It's always there.

 

[CWatson]

My most-complex-ever story had four viewpoint characters with eight plots spun out between them, and took place over a period of seven days. It was a logistical nightmare. In the end, I wrote each plot separately, chopped them into logical pieces, and combined those pieces (as appropriate) into the eventual day-long chapters.

Alternately, you can pull a Nick Scipio, who's writing a mystery novel: the first characters we meet are narrator Paul Hughes, his unnamed wife, and his telephone, which informs him that a woman of their mutual acquaintence has died. Nick's been writing this coming-of-age story for five years and several million words, but because we still don't know which of his various loves becomes his wife, and who died, we're still hanging on. As plot arcs go, it's a cheap trick. Cheap tricks work.

Essentially, the question of "plot arc" is:

1) Where did your characters start?
2) Where do you plan for them to end?
3) What is the journey they take to get from start to finish?
4) How many pieces (chapters) did you cut that journey into? Generally this involves smaller and more minor moments of crisis--sometimes one per chapter, as in 24, but not always. These are lesser releases of tension, because you can't just build up and build up and build up; you have to give a payoff at some point, even if it's not The Big One. (Besides, most of us aren't as diabolical as 24's writers, who have written 144 episodes and 144 major plot twists. They're crazy. It's why we watch their show.)

Simple example: Gina and Greg are virgins and have decided to rectify this tonight. However, while Greg is gung-ho about it, Gina (like any self-respecting young woman) is a little more hesitant about it. By the end of the story, they've been each other's firsts; the meat of the story is about how they go back and forth on whether to go through with it, Gina out of doubt and Greg because he's trying to be a gentleman. Each smaller "climax" can, in this case, actually be a climax, as they bribe/apologize/distract each other by getting each other off and relieve the tension, only to build it back up again as they try to figure out what to do.

So. Three questions for a plot arc: 1) Where did you start, 2) Where are you going, and 3) What's the most interesting way to get there?

 

[Black Tulip]

Hmm, sounds like good advice but ... my characters get out of hand on a regular basis.

I may have decided where they have to go, they sometimes decide something entirely different.

 

[DarkBee]

Happens to me a lot too: I usually write a basic overview of the story down, and the rest develops while writing. More than once my characters gain certain personal aspects while writing, but I stick to those things, so I usually end up rereading my previous stories a lot.

 

[Guest]

This is an interesting thread. I have a story, 3 different stories actually, that I've been fussing over the years and have been stuck due to poor planning on my part. I've learned that it saves time/frustration by putting down a detailed outline instead of flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type of outlining when you write multi-plot story that carries over to several several short stories and/or chapters.

 

[CWatson]

This is an interesting thread. I have a story, 3 different stories actually, that I've been fussing over the years and have been stuck due to poor planning on my part. I've learned that it saves time/frustration by putting down a detailed outline instead of flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type of outlining when you write multi-plot story that carries over to several several short stories and/or chapters.

I've found that it definitely helps. At the very least, it's nice to know what my goal is--where I'm trying to get the characters to. (If I outline like I did for the 4-person/8-plot story, then I also know where I'm trying to get them to in this segment, not just overall. That really helps.) Stephen King describes that he can throw characters in a situation and just see what happens; I'm not like that. If I don't know the ending, I can't write. Having said that, I also don't start outlining until I've got at least a couple thousand words down, and have figured out whether these characters and this situation can keep my interest long enough to finish the story.

Even better, I'm also with DarkBee and Black Tulip about characters who get out of hand. To accomodate that, I don't specify with much detail what goes on in each scene, only that it starts at Point A and has to get to Point B. The path taken is, more often than not, left up to the characters. This had led to some very interesting permutations.

The key is to find a balance between regimented direction and freewheeling freedom, a balance that works for you. Some people can't stand knowing the ending. Others can't work without it. Most are somewhere in between. Figure out what you need to write your story, get it for yourself, and then write.

 

[Jedikool]

Excellent advice Watson. I have a lot of characters in my story and I have a basic idea on where I want them to be at the end. So before I begin each chapter I always try to figure out what each character will be doing in that chapter even if that chapter is more heavily weighted to 1 or 2 specific characters.