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Plot your story using the universal story form for structure and impact.

A Plot Planner mimics the universal story and is the framework for developing a gripping story. Rather than creating a dry, episodic list of scenes to cover, arrange your story by cause and effect to best engage the reader.

Think of the Plot Planner as the route or map of the journey you envision for your story. When you first plan your plot, your route is likely to be sketchy with lots of gaps and dead ends. These gaps will smooth over and fill in as you come to know your story and characters better. Along your story's route, the plot elements of dramatic action, characters, and thematic significance will rise and fall, like waves cresting. The flow of these elements is like the flow of energy the Chinese call “qi” (pronounced “chi”). The qi is the mainstay of life force, inherently present in all things.

Within your story, the energy undulates. Although every story has its own energy, a universal pattern of energy rising and falling repeats itself. The greater your understanding of this stable format, the better able you are to determine where and when to allow the energy to crest, to make your story most compelling to the reader. Allow the energy of your story to direct the flow of your scenes. The closer you can re-create this pattern in your presentation to the reader, the stronger and more compelling your story. A plot planner helps you map your story's energy and direction.

DESCRIPTION

All great stories have a beginning, middle and end.

1. The Beginning

The beginning usually encompasses one quarter of the entire story. Most of us start out strong in the beginning, but struggle to keep the momentum going.

2. The Middle

The middle is the longest portion of the project – one half of the entire story. It commands the most scenes, and is where many writers fall short. When the allure of the beginning is over, the story starts getting messy. Writers often know the beginning and the end of their story, but bog down in creating the middle. Crisis is the meat of the middle.

Place crisis – the scene of greatest intensity and highest energy in your story thus far – around the three-quarter point in your story, when your audience needs a recharge to combat fatigue, frustration, and irritation. Crisis is where tension and conflict peak – it is a turning point in your story. Crisis is developed through the scenes to provide the greatest impact in the energy flow of your story.

The crisis is the false summit of your case, where the audience can perceive the true summit. Here, your story’s energy drops after the drama of the crisis, giving your audience the opportunity to rebuild energy in anticipation of reaching the climax.

3. The End

The final quarter of your presentation represents the end, which comprises three parts: the build-up to the climax, the climax itself, and the resolution. The build-up to the climax represents the steps you take to lead the reader to envision how the story should end. The climax is the point of highest drama in your story, the crowning moment when the thematic significance of your story becomes clear to the reader. The resolution is your opportunity to fully tie together that significance and make your story complete.

PLOT PLANNER BENEFITS

A Plot Planner helps you visualize your story. Use a Plot Pl

Watch your delivery of backstory ~ the story of what, in the past, made the character who they are today (in story time).

Writers want to cram everything right up front.

"I know all their history, why would I want to withhold it from the reader?"
"I wrote it that way."
"It's the good part."

Writers spend lots of time imagining and writing every little detail about a character's past, be it for a child or an adult. So, of course, writers want to tell everything right away. Perhaps, in the process, even show off a bit how clever they are. Until, one understands how curiosity works.

Not telling everything makes the reader curious. Curiosity draws the reader deeper into the story world. The reader wants to fill in the "who," "what," "how" (the "where" and "when" have already been clearly established right up front to ground the reader). They keep reading. This is good.

Tell the reader only what they need to know to inform that particular scene. This is especially true in the Beginning (1/4 mark). During the first quarter of the project, the character can have a memory. But, if you feel you just must inject a full-blown flashback, where you take the reader back in time in scene, wait until the Middle.

(PLOT TIP: If you're absolutely sure you absolutely have to include the flashback, try using one when you're bogged down in the middle of the middle.)

Last Saturday I taught the 1st in a series of 3 Plot Intensives in Capitola, CA. I covered plot at the overall story level. This Saturday I teach the 2nd plot workshop to cover plot at the scene level. Next Saturday I teach the 3rd and final workshop; Plot for Meaning at the overall plot level.

If you're just joining us for the 2nd Annual Plot WriMo, we're about to enter the analyzation phase. Wait... before you click away, I admit what we're doing here is not very romantic, especially if you've just emerged from under the spell of creating a new story. Still, what you do here for this month, rather than strip away, actually strengthens and builds your story's vital essence and clears a path for a dynamic rewrite.

I'm following along using a rough draft of mine to do the assignments for the 2nd Annual International Plot WriMo. Because I do better when I write it and see it, I grab a few 3 X 5 white index cards and colored pens, and transfer the themes I'd jotted down to the top of the index card and draw a tiny PP -- tiny because it only has to fit 7 scenes for now.

Five scenes come quickly. With some tweaking and rethinking, seven of them link together by themes of betrayal and forgiveness and love. Still, the overall meaning -- that perfect thematic statement -- alludes me. It's there in the story. I just don't know the story well enough to distill a 45,000 word story into one pithy statement. Yet...

It will come. Whatever you focus your attention comes to you.

In the meantime, I keep the index card with the tiny Plot Planner of 7 scenes close by and continue exploring the themes as they appear.

The Beginning (1/4)

The Inciting Incident scene and the End of the Beginning scene, the first and last respectively in the Beginning, fit the criteria perfectly. Though it is only now, when I fill the scenes in with consideration to the themes I generated and paired with the Character Emotional Development plot line, do I understand that, with a shift in the protagonist's motivation, the stakes of the story rise and the clock starts ticking. 

In this new light, the story fills me with energy and I look forward to writing of the next draft... at the end of the month, that is. There are many other elements still left to consider.

The Middle (1/2)

The Halfway Point and the Crisis fit at the middle of the Middle (1/2) and almost at the end of the Middle (3/4 mark) work though now I see how I can make the Character Emotional Development dark night of the soul cut deeper thanks to how universal the theme of forgiveness.

The End (1/4)

The scene before the Climax and the Climax both fall at the End portion of the Plot Planner takes on more meaning thanks to the exploration into the Character Emotional Development plot line in relationship to the theme of redemption. 

Don't push the theme. It will come. The theme is there whether you figure it out or not. It's just if you know it, the common thread can give you focus and keep you on track. (Plus, a thematic significance statement comes in handy at those holiday parties when your friends ask you what your

1 Comments on 2nd Annual Plot Writing Month -- Day Six, last added: 12/10/2009

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Anonymous said, on 12/10/2009 8:50:00 AM

I'm confused by your description of using the index cards. How many themes on a card? is the point to find ways that the 7 big scenes fit each theme?

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7. Slogging through the 1st Draft

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By: Martha Alderson, M.A., on 11/12/2009
Blog: Plot Whisperer for Writers and Readers (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags:  Martha Alderson, Blockbuster Plots, plot whisperer, Halfway point, the writers journey, slogging through first draft, beginning middle and end of a writing project, the hero journey, Add a tag

I wrote today's Twitter (1/2 pt. = commits to journey. Things seem to get a bit better. They're about to get way worse = Crisis 3/4 pt.) based on something I heard Andre Agassi say in an interview about his memoir. I missed the part about why he despises tennis from the start but at around the Middle of his journey to wholeness, he quits drugs and alcohol and commits to tennis for the very first time. 

Agassi's Halfway turning point does what all good Halfway turning points do: signals a move from ambivalence to commitment. At that point, as Agassi quickly finds out, rather than get better, the Halfway point signals that things are about to get way worse. 

The writer / protagonist (today's on-going plot consultation illustrates how closely the two are tied) leaves the ordinary world when she signs up for a series of on-going plot consultations with the goal of finishing a writing project she has started and stopped for years. 

She slips into the writers life with ease. Fortunate to have a lifestyle that supports writing and reading and fully sinking into the writers life, she sets up a dream writing schedule. Every morning, write with coffee. Write and walk. Write and errands. Write and eat. Write and read. Write and sleep. Sounds heavenly. Only distractions are those she allows. 

Yesterday she hits the wall. Comes up with two new writing projects in quick succession. Retires to bed sick. Rejects vision of literary genius. 

She hits the exact same point in her writer's journey that the protagonist is about to encounter on the hero's journey. Up until now, the writer and the protagonist have gone through the motions. Now, with full commitment, the writer and protagonist step forward thinking that by making the commitment, the hard work is behind them. They step forward into thin air without a clue that the worst is yet to come...

Crank up the energy. Next is the Crisis...

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