The plot process

[FallingToFly]

How do you maintain your plot, and move it forward?

How do you kibosh plotbunnies?

How do you stop, rewind, and get back on track when the tangents appear?

What writer's tricks have you learned to help craft tight, fast and fluid stories?

 

[Stella_Omega]

Damn, you ask the tough questions!

it's difficult to hold to the line, for sure. I thought i was bad at it-- but i have a co-writer who is impossible. With her, the only way we can work is if I delete huge swaths of wonderful prose, fabulous ideas-- sometimes entire chapters, that go somewhere else, that introduce lots of new characters, that "play house" or rehabilitate the bad Guy-- she has a mighty soft heart!

It gives me stomachaches.

 

[CWatson]

Umm... By editing?

The first dash of writing is a creative process, and you should allow the story (and yourself) to bloom in whatever darn direction it desires. Yes, this can get you off-track. Yes, you can tangent. Yes, sometimes the story goes in a direction you completely didn't expect. These are all good things that you should embrace. I mean, if you didn't see that plot twist coming, there's no way The Reader will.

So write it all down, give it some time, and then come back later when you can be objective about it. Then decide whether you were drifting too far off course, in light of how everything turned out.

Alternately, outline ahead of time. I used to do that to the point that the outlines were practically a first draft. I had every scene plotted out and put in order, and all the cross-links and references planned; the story was basically done. All I had to do from there was plug each chapter into its socket--by which I mean, write the darn thing.

Being a writer is a complex job. You have to know how to create, and you have to know how to edit. And you have to know when is the right time to do each of them. Doing both at once will just cripple your self-confidence, and you'll never be able to write in the uninhibited, un-selfconscious bliss that every writer seeks. It's hard enough to achieve under normal circumstances; don't hold yourself back on it deliberately by editing every sentence.

 

[FallingToFly]

Tough questions are the ones that teach.

I'm a shameless purple prose writer. It's so hard for me to edit, and cut out parts, but I have to.

I'm having troubles now, however, with stalled plots. I know where I want to go, I just can't seem to leap the chasm to get the characters back on the road.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

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[sr71plt]

My plots tend to hold themselves in line and, at the same time, expand and fill out as I go. If I slip something into a description or action that doesn't seem to serve the plot at that point, about 95 percent of the time I find as I keep writing that my mind already knew a use for it and had put it there to be used later. I go into writing with a hook/theme in mind, a planned ending (which I'll change when/if I see a better one coming along), maybe a couple of key points to play off of in the story, and whatever research I need to do for atmospherics and appropriate names. And then I just sit down and let it rip. And maybe once or twice out of 500 works, I'll find I went so far out of the lines that I have to scrap or do major rewriting. I do, however, sometimes go back and put in some foreshadowing and other tools needed later as the story enriches.

After I've dashed it out, during which process I'm zoned out and you could have a gunfight in front of my desk and I wouldn't know it, I either review it all immediately or do so within the next couple of hours. For a Lit. story or eXcessica book, I then send it off to my reading partner. When it comes back, I plug in his corrections/respond to his questions. Then I review it and send it out.

For my mainstream writings, I put them aside at least overnight and then review them and send them out.

Thus far everything sent out has sold. Often, when I've done something for a contest or a journal, it gets kicked around from fence to post until it sells, but I just keep working down the line until someone takes it.

 

[Corylea]

To me, writing is more about characters than about plot. Create your characters, give them an interesting situation to deal with, and then let them have their heads. Their getting out of a bad situation or making the best of a so-so situation or finding the hidden thorns in a good situation IS the plot. I've seen otherwise good writers create stories that didn't quite work because they were trying to impose the plot on the characters, rather than having the plot grow out of who the characters are.

I often toss something in for one reason, and then my characters find umpteen other uses for having the whatever-it-is in there. Sometimes things interlock in so many different ways that I'm astonished -- how DID they figure that out?

 

[FallingToFly]

To me, writing is more about characters than about plot. Create your characters, give them an interesting situation to deal with, and then let them have their heads. Their getting out of a bad situation or making the best of a so-so situation or finding the hidden thorns in a good situation IS the plot. I've seen otherwise good writers create stories that didn't quite work because they were trying to impose the plot on the characters, rather than having the plot grow out of who the characters are.

I often toss something in for one reason, and then my characters find umpteen other uses for having the whatever-it-is in there. Sometimes things interlock in so many different ways that I'm astonished -- how DID they figure that out?

This is closest to how I write.

Normally I have a character cast, and an idea of how they meet, and where they end up. From that point on- I'm maybe only a jump ahead of them.

 

[sr71plt]

I admit to being plot driven over character (usually, sometimes it is the character who pops up in my mind and I weave a plot around him/her). I started in writing mainstream thrillers, though, so that pretty much put plot out front. I will, though, occasionally even start with an atmosphere or an object and go from there.

Right now I'm expanding a short story from Lit. into a novella for eXcessica. When I do that, I always like to give it a new twist. The new twist that came into my mind is an object--a black leather belt sling. And the story is getting recast and expanding from there.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

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[sr71plt]

SR71PLT

Do you mean to say you build a story around a special character? Plots are like belly buttons, every human comes with a navel, and every story comes with a plot.

No, I don't mean that. Was I unclear when I said that most of my stories came out of plot?

"I admit to being plot driven over character . . ."

 

[Stella_Omega]

To me, writing is more about characters than about plot. Create your characters, give them an interesting situation to deal with, and then let them have their heads. Their getting out of a bad situation or making the best of a so-so situation or finding the hidden thorns in a good situation IS the plot. I've seen otherwise good writers create stories that didn't quite work because they were trying to impose the plot on the characters, rather than having the plot grow out of who the characters are.

that's how I've always written short stories. I find it's not so good for multi-chapters, though. I want to read something that goes somewhere.

I often toss something in for one reason, and then my characters find umpteen other uses for having the whatever-it-is in there. Sometimes things interlock in so many different ways that I'm astonished -- how DID they figure that out?

this just happened in that co-written project. A throwaway line in the beginning turned out to be perfect, with the addition of one word, as a foreshadowing to things that happen two thirds of the way towards the end.

 

[FallingToFly]

I'll admit to it. I often have characters long before I have a plot.

The plot sort of happens, and that's the spark for where I want to go.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

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[sr71plt]

SR71PLT

I suppose its puzzling if you believe a story and plot are created together, simultaneously. Like tits and navels come with babies.

Well, since I think "story" and "plot" are the same thing, you've lost me, yes you have. Don't worry, I don't have a problem about being lost. Don't try to find me.

 

[CWatson]

I often have only characters in a situation; I consider the plot merely an extension of that. For instance, the story I'm working on right now (and if by "working on" we mean "procrastinating on by posting on the Lit boards, since I have only the first-time scene left but it's going to be the hardest" ) started with just three characters: a married couple, meeting her ex-husband over lunch. I wrote in both directions, both back into their pasts and forward into their futures, but really the whole thing just revolved around the question of who the couple is, who the ex-husband is, why he's an ex-husband now, and what happened at the lunch.

Of course, some people need more than just a vague situation and a clutch of half-formed characters. Sometimes I'm one of those people--it depends on the story, really. But by and large, I find that my stories start with nothing more than putting two interesting characters in an interesting situation, and then writing down what they do.

 

[sr71plt]

I think that "a slice of my day" writing was popular at some time or other, but I can't say I've really seen any of it published anywhere. I am the volume editor of a regional anthology, and every year I have one or two of those show up in the mail (always by a woman writer), and in my "no thanks" letter I say that a story really should have some element of change in it--or it isn't really a story. That element of change is what we call plot.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

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[Corylea]

Miss Crabtree went to the restroom and shit, is a report.

Miss Crabtree went to the restroom and was goosed by a plumbers snake, is a story.

No, "Miss Crabtree went to the restroom and was goosed by a plumber's snake" is an incident. It's a story if she decides to shit in the garden henceforth, which causes problems in her family. It's a story if the incident made her decide to try anal sex and she became an anal slut afterwards. It's a story if the incident gave her such a strong fear of plumbers that she wouldn't get her plumbing repaired when it broke, and the house collapsed from water damage.

She has to react and change for it to be a story.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

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[Corylea]

Let me know when you figure out how to tell when a plumber's snake is consenting and when it isn't.

 

[Liar]

How do you maintain your plot, and move it forward?

How do you kibosh plotbunnies?

How do you stop, rewind, and get back on track when the tangents appear?

What writer's tricks have you learned to help craft tight, fast and fluid stories?

It's strange. People always ask those kind of questions when talking about writing, and my answer to those four would be:

1. The same way I maintain my walk. I steer in the direction I intended.

2. I don't deal in plotbunnies. And what does "kibosh" mean?

3. Tangents only happen if your plot is curved.

4. Do I need tricks? I get a concept idea for a story. I think up a plot that embodies the idea. Then I write the story. Slowly.

The only trick I know of is to not fall in love with a plot. Or character. Or story idea. Because when I write something, and I read it afterwards (or better if I examine it in progress) and I find that it's unfocused, confusing, boring or tangled, I can always, and I mean always, trace that back to the fact that the original story idea was unfocused, confusing, boring or tangled. In which case trying to tailor it with a re-write or an edit is lipstick on a pig. Better scrap it, forget it, and try a new story idea.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

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[penandpaper]

How do you maintain your plot, and move it forward?

How do you kibosh plotbunnies?

How do you stop, rewind, and get back on track when the tangents appear?

What writer's tricks have you learned to help craft tight, fast and fluid stories?

1. I'm surprised no one mentioned outlines. I know some authors write out each scene, similar to a play, and then the creative part comes when they let their characters interact with the setting and other characters in the scene.

2. Again, if you have an outline, plotbunnies generally aren't strong enough to steer you away from your short term objective and long term goal.

3. Edit.

4. Edit more. Listen when someone tells you it's crap. Rewrite it, and then hope it's not regurgitated crap.

 

[sr71plt]

If I have an outline at all, it is for something very, very long and the outline is very, very short.