Finding a Plot

I have always struggled with plotlines for my stories, especially short stories. I have never had a problem creating characters or settings, but plots have always stumped me. However, this year, thanks to a lot of help from my wonderful dissertation supervisor, I have started to understand how to find a plot within a story.

Firstly, there needs to be a conflict. This is pretty straight forward and probably quite obvious. But there won’t be a plot without a conflict.

Secondly, there needs to be a narrative arc. This means that at least one of your characters has to change by the end of the story. Even if it’s a short story, even if the story is set within a day or even a few minutes, a character must change or there is no narrative arc. The change can be something small like a character learning something about themselves or deciding to let another character help them rather than stubbornly shutting them out. It could be a decision that is made after the character has spent the whole story struggling to make it.

Bear in mind that having a character change doesn’t mean that your story needs to have a resolution. The change in your character does not need to be something that fixes everything in the story. The resolution of the story can easily be that there is no resolution at all. But, whether or not the conflict is resolved, at least one of your characters does need to evolve in some way.

So you need to ask yourself, what is the conflict in my story and what about my character would change due to this conflict? I also read somewhere that it is helpful to write a logline for your story by condensing these questions into one sentence. In that sentence, you will find your plot. 

This all sounds like very simple advice, but I assure you it’s important. Without conflict or a narrative arc your story will sound more like an extract from something longer than a story in its own right.

I hope this was helpful. Thanks for reading and I hope you all have a wonderful new year.

Planning vs. Spontaneous Writing

I have always been more of a spontaneous writer than a planner. I tend to just start writing and see how my characters and plot develop as I go. Quite often this gets me into trouble and I end up writing a story that doesn’t go anywhere or doesn’t quite make sense. But, in my opinion, planning can get you into just as much trouble as spontaneous writing can.

I am going into my final year of university and am starting to think about my creative writing dissertation. Before the summer holidays, my supervisor told me not to write any of my dissertation until I got back to university and instead to just think and plan and do a lot of reading.

So I took her advice and spent the whole of the summer thinking about my intended story idea. And the more I thought about it, the more confused I became. As I dwelt on my characters and the situation they’re in, I realised how much depth there is to my story idea. I realised that there are a thousand ways I could broach the subject I’m planning to write about and I have no idea which one to choose.

I have thought of thousands of possibilities for my characters, a thousand different endings and a thousand different ways I could begin. I only have 6,500 words in which to write this story and there’s no way I will be able to include everything I’ve planned out over this summer.

So the question is: how do you find a balance between spontaneous writing and planning?

Obviously, the answer to this question depends on the kind of writer you are. Some writers need meticulous planning whereas other writers thrive with none. But whichever kind of writer you are, we are all in danger of, one the one hand, not thinking our story through properly and getting lost on the way or, on the other, over thinking it and becoming confused.

I think part of the reason I have become so confused about my dissertation is that I’m trying to plan out what my characters will do without knowing them properly. In my opinion, you don’t really get to know your characters until you start writing their story. I am sure that when I start writing, my characters will tell me what they want to do and they will take control of the story as characters so often do. Fictional characters are so organic and unpredictable, there’s no way you can plan out their entire existence before you start writing.

So here is my advice. When you think of an idea for a story, jot down the basics and then instantly start writing it. You can still plan the story as you go along. But, in my opinion, you can’t know your characters well enough to decide what they would be likely to do until you have started writing about them.

Let me know if you disagree with this advice in the comments. I’m interested on your thoughts on the matter. Thanks for reading.  

A Great Character Exercise

Hey guys,

So today I wanted to share with you a creative writing exercise that I found particularly useful. It probably won’t work for everyone but it inspired a short story I wrote recently that I actually quite like.

We were given a picture. I’ve posted it below but you could try finding your own picture on Google images and working with that if you preferred.

The first stage of the exercise was to give this character a name and write a whole list of character traits, even ones that don’t seem particularly relevant. This is a fairly common creative writing exercise and it seems to crop up a lot in writing workshops but it really does work.

The next part of the exercise was to write an internal monologue that describes your character’s morning routine, reveals that he has a secret and explains what he is going to do about this secret.

This is the passage that it inspired for me:

My wife asks me what I want to eat. I say fish fingers and chips and she reminds me that it’s breakfast time. I find myself wondering why that matters and if there was ever a time in my life when times of the day were important. But of course there was. I used to have Michael ready and dressed for school by 8:15 every day. In his little shorts and his cap.

My wife brings me eggs and soldiers. Did I ask for them? Perhaps I did because I find I really want eggs and soldiers. She puts it on the table in front of my arm chair and turns on my favourite gardening show. Dear Betty, always looking after me just like she used to look after Michael. Where is Michael? I must have said that out loud because Betty’s looking worried. But it doesn’t really matter that she doesn’t answer because I shall go out to look for him later.

Every day when Betty goes for a walk – and she takes a while, bless her, she can’t walk as fast as she used to – I leave the house, I walk down to the local school and I talk to Michael. He comes and sits by the fence in the playground during play time and he tells me what he had for breakfast and what he’s done at school that morning. And then play time is over and we both go back inside.

The reason I like this exercise is that I’ve always been quite good at creating characters and setting but I’ve always had trouble coming up with a plotline for my stories. The concept of the character’s secret in this exercise is really great at inspiring a catalyst for a plot and is a great way of driving the plot forward rather than getting stuck in the character’s head as I usually do.

Pretty simple but I hope it helps. Thanks for reading!