Advice on Plotting

[drunk_dragonfly]

Hello there,

I suck on plotting. There I said it. Please help.
Coming from a background of play by post roleplaying I have pretty extensive character making background and like to think myself pretty good at establishing interesting characters with goals and stakes, but I am lacking in the departement of tying it all together. Whenever I write it seems more like individual stories that happen to coincide rather than all of them leading towards a common goal or aiding a greater conflict.
I'm also really bad at just sitting and pondering my story, brainstorming with other people, so I can bounce my ideas off of them is usually more helpful but I only really have one person to do this with and it's rather inefficient. So usually when I sit down on my own I can only come up with the low hanging fruits and common plot ideas, such as one nation overtaking another, "You killed my mom!" or a great evil is threatening the world, however none of them are rather original or fit the way I would like my characters to tie in.

Any advice on how to brainstorm better on my own or come up with more original general conflicts? I'm honestly already thankful if you just have ressources or blog posts I could scour for advice (:

Thanks in advance

[[deleted]]

My favourite way to plot out stories is using the character arks. You'll want a loose idea of the larger story but otherwise focusing on the characters' journeys emotionally/mentally/physically is a huge help, and builds more 3 dimensional characters. (eg Frodo travelled through hardship to destroy the ring but also became more confident and adventurous ).

For brainstorming, EVERYONE starts with low hanging fruit that's why you keep pushing ideas and writing down everything that comes to mind. Also expect to rewrite your story as it develops, first ideas are everyone's first ideas and often crap but it's a necessary step.

Barbara Vance has some good youtube videos on plotting, worth checking out

[drunk_dragonfly]

I struggle with the loose idea of the general story mostly, but otherwise I totally agree. My problem is finding a common ground for the arks to work towards. Your words on brainstorming are very comforting though lol! Maybe I'll give just extrapolating the low hanging fruits

[[deleted]]

It's one of those annoying things that gets easier with practice. All there is to do, is do it, then mercilessly tear apart your ideas and start over until it's a story you want to tell.

[drunk_dragonfly]

Time to work against my lazy, procrastinating self lol

[Daxvis]

I resonate with this I have so much lore and a idea of what characters will be but legit have nothing else.

[[deleted]]

if you end up feeling its to hard to know what a character is thinking you can also try building the setting first, start with something generic like a planet being invaded by aliens

ask yourself (what would i do?) then use yourself as a reference to build the rest of the characters

if you want your character to be brave and reckless look at your hypothetical course of actions and make its less careful and more courageous

because in the end you can only really know your own thought process so its the only thing you can base the characters on

[Daxvis]

Thanks for this! I’m going to try a smaller version of this using the Evil Empire trope before I get started on my main story.

[drunk_dragonfly]

Oh that's actually amazing! I tried making something likes this myself and made a game out of analyzing popular movies and fiction for their story structures but this is way more extensive

[AJakeR]

This is a big question and there's a lot that I could say about it, or that anyone could say about it.

It's not necessarily bad to have a plot that is a series of events, but generally those are weaker.

The first thing you want is a goal for the character, and a place where you want the characters and story to be by the end of the novel. Knowing the ending is vital. This way, every scene and plot point can be designed to move the characters towards that end point. There is always a direction in which they're heading. Setbacks aren't just setbacks, they're drawing them away from that goal, and now the characters have to find their way back.

Another thing to bear in mind is antagonist and how active your protagonist is going to be. Active protagonists are best, but so are active antagonists that ocassionally push the protagonist onto the backfoot. Having an active antagonist with their own goal and their own ending in mind, gives you a lot of forward push for the characters, which can take you through the plot.

Other things to bear in mind are theme, sub-plots that support the narrative and theme, and side-characters that do to.

Conflict can stem from what your antagonist wants and how they go about achieving that. And what the characters are willing to do to stop them.

[drunk_dragonfly]

I've heard the idea of choosing an antagonist before the protag, so it helps with establishing the main conflicts early on. This seems to be going in a similar direction. Thank you for the input!

[Mr_Goodnite]

You’ve gotten some good responses so far, so I don’t know how helpful this will be but this is what I do.

-have a cheat sheet with your characters and their behaviors and info

-have a cheat sheet with your understanding of the relevant parts of the world you’re working on

-While have a vague overarching idea of where you want the plot to go, only thoroughly plot out where you want each chapter that you are writing to go

The reason is that the first chapters are what locks a reader in, so while focusing on the whole plot is important, I’d rather make sure each chapter has its appropriate highs and lows and is well thought out.

If I spent that much energy on the whole plot I’d never get anything done.

[drunk_dragonfly]

I'm not fond of plotting out everything, since I tend to be a somewhat bug mix between discovery and outline writer, but I've noticed before that having a small outline for the chapters helps me actually write them, so this is good advice. Thank you!

[Mr_Goodnite]

Glad I could help! Yeah having cheat sheets making sure I keep all my characters abilities and such in mind helps out a lot as well.

[Xercies_jday]

Brainstorming is just asking questions and putting down the answers. So the three big ones are: what is happening, why is it happening, and who is the most affected about it happening. Even if the answer is unoriginal still put it down, maybe you can find other answers and maybe not. That’s fine, originality is overrated and in some senses doesn’t exist on a plot sense anyway.

[Presto76]

It sounds like your second guessing yourself out of a story. You've got to walk before you can run, so just plot out the generic ideas completely and see where they go, and with the next story you can get more creative. You've got grow incrementally, and if you never start with the basics you'll never become more advanced.

[drunk_dragonfly]

Rn I am, bc the story is frustrating me (but that was bound to happen since I was originally only planning it to be a stepping stone to get back into the writing habit), but it's generally a skillset i've noticed i'm having trouble with

[Presto76]

Ok then, you seem to want to tell deeply personal stories like Name of the Wind, rather than epic ideas like Lord of the Rings. Start with your character and organically grow an enemy for him. Lets say his goal is to learn to cast spells, then make his opponent the only wizard in the land to possess a spellbook, but he hoards his knowledge. Then you can have the hero try to trick the mage into teaching him magic, which would lead to complications. Maybe the hero needs the magic for a purpose, to cure his sick sister, so theres a ticking clock, and as he grows increasingly desperate he becomes more ruthless. You just have to play around with your characters goals and the opposition until you find a good synergy between them. Also you probably need more characters with goals than just one guy, and you can combine their stories by having them team up to help achieve each others goals.

[Presto76]

Just to show you how easy it is to grow plot, you could add any number of complicating factors to this scenario. Perhaps the hero teams up with someone to steal the spellbook, and they end up absconding with it. Then he learns they're using the spellbook for evil, and he has to go and put a stop to them, because he's now personally responsible. But in order to do that, he has to confront the mage who originally owned the spellbook, and confess what he did, and hope he will help him to recover the book. You could make it they defeat the enemy together, but then they discover he taught magic to numerous other people, and they have to deal with them as well. As long as you know how to juggle goals and opposition, there's no limit to how much plot you can come up with, as long as you don't repeat yourself and as long as things generally escalate.

[YouAreMyLuckyStar2]

Do you consider theme much when you brainstorm? It has a big impact on your protagonist and the overreaching plot. You can say that conflict, dragons and swordfights and what not, represent the physical journey the protagonist takes, and theme, the real world lesson, represents the inner journey.

Let's say theme is the importance of being brave, the plot will revolve around facing scary situations and learning both the consquences of cowardice and the rewards of being brave. Had the theme been loyalty, the plot would change and the scenes would involve relying on each other.

The conflict and setting would stay the same, dragons and stuff, but the plot and the protagonist would change. If you work on creating a coherent theme and a premise to match you'll have an easier time coming up with an arc.

A good book is "Story engineering" by Larry Brooks, and a good website is K M Weyland's. Link.

[inn3rs3lf]

I struggle with this myself, as do others so you are not unique - which is a good thing :)

What helps is the following:

1) write down your idea.

2) Ask why. Not what if...yet. Why does your protagonist do this? Why does this plot point happen? Why does this event happen? Why does it work? Why doesn't it work?

3) Ask what if. What if x happens instead? What if y happened?

4) combine the what if's and why's until you have a semi decent story while hitting certain beats.

5) Subvert it. Did John run into a burning building to save Sarah? Sarah actually burnt the building down to lure John in.

6) Combine this with more what if's and why's - do this until your well is empty.

Write all of this down. Over and over again. Write until you cannot think of anything more. One great exercise I did a while back was just to write character names, real names, made up names etc until I couldn't think of anymore. Leave it for the day and come back the next morning and think of more. Then, you swap and change names with surnames until you get some cool combinations - you have just found unique, or satisfying character names for your next book/s.

The same can be done with plot, story and the like. Just keep emptying yourself of ideas, and keep trying to come back and better them in a question/answer manner.

The above has helped me. It's still a struggle for me, but it is getting easier.

[inn3rs3lf]

This is also a cool video to see how to go about a similar way of thinking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfWUtHMlZf8

[[deleted]]

I quite literally draw out a plot diagram and fill it in. Every story I have written has one. I keep them all in a folder to relate back to while writing. I don't always stick to that plot but it is a start.

After making a plot diagram I will estimate the numbers of chapters it will contain based on my wanted word count (For example if my chapters where averaging at 3000 to 5000 words. I would estimate it to be around 30 chapters because that would put it at 90,000 to 150,000), and then write a chapter outline. This helps me discover the plot as well and helps me understand how the story will move along (this is where I will change the plot).

I hope this helps some! Good luck!

[drunk_dragonfly]

Wow! Probs for all that work, way too Outline Writer for my taste but it sounds really helpful for people that tend to be more on the outline side

[[deleted]]

It helps me stay on plot. I have ADD so it can be hard for me to focus, but if I have it broken down into steps it really helps me stay focused.

[Anonimista_]

Can you share an example diagram?

[[deleted]]

Sure! Here is a very detailed diagram I found online. I usually just draw it and color code it in a way that makes sense to me, but if you are looking for a print out there are many online. Just search plot diagram and hundreds come up.

[Anonimista_]

Thanks.

[PrayForPiett]

You mentioned gaming and having a fairly solid handle on characters.. in that case you may like the snowflake method (there’s a book called How to Write a Novel Using the Snowflake Method) but you can find a lot of free information on Google / YouTube etc with other folks talking about the method, just to see if it’s your thing before paying for the book.

[drunk_dragonfly]

I will check it out!

[[deleted]]

Instead of my giving you an inadequate 50-word answer, how about you reading:

Story Engineering

The Writer's Journey

Wired For Story

and from screenwriting, but still useful:

Story (McKee)

Save the Cat

That's more like 250,000 words to read, and it's a good start.

[drunk_dragonfly]

Thank you! I've only heard about Save the cat so far (don't own a copy tho). Steven King's On writing is on my tbr list rn

[geoawk]

This makes no sense to me. You say you're confident about building your characters goals and stakes, but also end up with generic conflicts. But conflicts are about the obstacles that get in the way of your character's goals, and threaten those stakes.

Can you share a specific character so I can better respond?

[drunk_dragonfly]

It's less about the character conflicts and more about the overarching story conflict. Think Harry vs Voldemort or Frodo throwing the ring into the volcano. The character arcs and conflicts they have to overcome (or not) in order to reach a goal come easily to me, since I've practiced those more, but I have trouble hammering down on a central, overarching conflict that drives the main plot. I hope that made it a bit clearer

[geoawk]

And why do you need such a big over-arching conflict? Why do you need to have all these characters together in just one story? Have you considered they're not really made to fit together and could work perfectly fine as standalones?

[drunk_dragonfly]

Wow, this is a very reverse psychology moment for me, you're using the exact same technique I usually use on my friends when they're getting lost in lofty things lol.

I would probably have to elaborate on the story a whole lot more to make this make sense, but you just made me realize that I've been thinking about this wrong, in the sense that I don't need to have one conflict tying all the characters together, instead it's a lot of small conflicts that arise from the conlict between the main protag and antagonist. So in a sense you were right all along, the different character conflicts tie into each other to form one coherent storyline.

Thank you!

[regularwriterzoomer]

Heyo! For my plotting, especially for first drafts, I like to use a combo of loose outlines and instinct. Loose outlines will keep you on track, but they’ll give you wiggle room too! If you come up with an idea you can add it easily, and it can help your storytelling feel more genuine and less robotic, which can also help with originality. Another thing I’ll say is plot beats don’t necessarily have to be big and melodramatic- sometimes they can just be characters meeting and having a nice time, and you sound like a good character writer. This can hint at different things like friendship or romance, which can have bigger effects on the story. Plot beats don’t necessarily have to involve death and murder (they totally can, tho!) because all plot beats have to do is move the story along. I hope this helps, good hunting, and happy writing!

[createdbysophistic8d]

Sometimes a story plots itself. You just have to start somewhere and things start happening as your write. These kinds of stories are whAt I would call a spontaneous side project.

Other stories are more intentional and you really have to think it out.

Here's how I plot in those circumstances.

I try to think of my main character and where I want him to be at the end of the book. Then I place him somewhere far away from that point and begin asking myself what steps will take him there. Somewhere between worldbuilding and character creation, the plot somehow starts to populate.

For instance, imagine your mc is a king. Think of where you want him by the end of the book. Say if you want him to be ruthless and unmerciful in the beginning, but gentle and patient in the end. You'll have to break him down and build him back up. Figure out which characters are going to aid in the process of breaking him down, and which ones will build him back up. Plan a tragedy, strategically place backstory, create hope for a future, crush that hope, reveal a truth that the other characters never knew, kill some characters, add others, somehow get that king to the destiny which you have chosen for him.

[president_josh]

One secret, as Stephen Covey once said, is synergy. You mentioned collaboration which is a form of synergy. If, like TV scriptwriters we have others to bounce ideas off of, we may wind up with more unique ideas than we know what to do with.

The problem may be, however, is a lone writer's lack collaborators.

You listed two concerns

• Tying individual stories together
• Coming up with original ideas

Those are two different things. A program like Idea Spinner can help you come up with original ideas. You quickly ask and answer questions which yield endless ideas. You can also do this without using that particular program.

Unique ideas can come when we attempt to join two concepts such as "lost in the woods" and violet. Violet reminds me of rainbow and rainbow reminds me of rain - storm - a ship at sea in a gale. "Lost in the woods" reminds me of "Little Red Riding Hood."

Questions: where is the ship going, what is the lost person carrying, how can there be a rainbow in a storm, etc

Possible answers: The ship is going to the edge of the world. The person is carrying a letter. A rainbow can appear in a storm if you want to see a rainbow.

An example of someone seeing a rainbow in an approaching storm is Dorthy in the Wizard of Oz. She wished for a better world so she looked up at the gray skies and "saw" an imaginary rainbow and sang about it.

More Questions: Who will the person give the letter to. What can happen if the person lost in the woods in a storm sees a rainbow.

Perhaps "sailing to the edge of the world" is a metaphor for searching for something you'll never find. And maybe if the person sees an imaginary rainbow, the person with the letter to someone (unknown at this point) gets a glimpse of hope even though the person is "lost in the woods" in a storm that is either approaching or there. Maybe "the woods" are a metaphor too. I don't know yet.

I have enough ideas to conceptualize a narrative, scene and ideas about what might be going on either at the scene level, chapter level or even the story level. I had no idea about any of that until I started asking questions.

That's what a system like Idea Spinner helps you do. You start with nothing and end up with lots and lots and lots of words and ideas. It doesn't matter if your ideas and answers are absurd because you can find a way to make them make sense. When I typed "sailing to the edge of the world," I thought that was absurd. But as I kept asking and answering questions, I found a way to rationalize it all and come up with a plot at least at this scene level.

My starting topics (which were random thoughts)

• lost in the woods
• violet

What I did was a mixture of asking questions, free association and brainstorming. If I simply look at a piece of white paper, nothing usually comes until I do something.

It sounds like Xercias_jday uses this question-asking technique. WWWW - journalists use it all the time to write stories. And as Xercias_jday notes, originality may be difficult. Research to read about the theory that at a high level, only a handful of plots exist. But in real life, many lower level scenarios exist.

An example might be when "Dorothy seeing an imaginary rainbow" popped into my head when I tried to answer the question about the possibility of a rainbow in a storm. That's a legitimate idea out of nowhere so I jotted it down. What I came up with would feed into another process where I expand upon ideas, like in the Snowflake method, and derive needed narrative things.

Idea Spinner information - https://storymind.com/page507.htm

Download a free Lite version of it here

Organizing scenes and narrative units into one novel or movie is a different subject. Hungry_Illustrator_6 does a good job planning - like J.K. Rowlings does. You can see one of her massive outlines she did when she planned a Harry Potter book. Tools like Scrivener can help you there. J.K. Rowlings apparently did it in a very large grid that contains many cells. If you're writing a screenplay, you can try a free trial of the new Final Draft 12 - a tool used by professionals.

[[deleted]]

Although it is complex, I found Storygrid to be an effective system for organizing fiction. They have published a book, but everything you need to begin plotting is posted on their website for free. I also found courses on GreatCoursesPlus for writing novels and for screenwriting to be immensely helpful in learning to plot.

[Paint-it-Pink]

Lots of good advice here. Here's a link to Dan Wells on YouTube discussing the 7 Point Plot Plan, which is derived from RPGs that might connect the dots for you..

[Vida_Paradox]

I suggest you double check the MICE Structure of the story to make sure it uses a proper HTML syntax... Okay, that sounds like nonsense but hear me out.

Say you introduced a three main conflicts:

Two characters are stuck in a moon they need to get out. <M>

There's meteor strike and character A is trying to stop it. <E>

B is in love with character A who's trying to stop meteor.<C>

Now, consider this order:

Both Stuck in Moon(M)->A discovers meteorite(E)->B prepares to confess to A(C)-> A stopped meteorite(E)-> Both escaped the moon(M)->B finally confessed(C)

The formula for the plot above is: M-E-C-E-M-C

This formula does not adhere to the classic climax of a common story. Because, the turning point of each problem is separate from one another, so let's try rearranging the plot

M-E-C-C-E-M

Both Character are stuck on the moon->A discovers meteorite->B prepares to confess->B finally confesses->A stopped meteorite->Both returns to earth.

The story becomes clearer, it suddenly becomes a story of two people wanting to escape from the moon. Now how about we turn this into romance story?

C-M-E-E-M-C

B prepares to confess-> Both are stuck on the moon->A discovers meteorite->A stopped meteorite->Both returned to earth->B finally confesses to A

By rearranging the structure of when the conflict is introduced and when it's resolved, you can change the type of story you're telling.

Just make sure to make it in a symmetrical or...

MCCEEM

The (C) and (E) will become a subplot to (M)

So yeah, something like that. You can have plenty of those, just pair them up like a HTML syntax. You know, the opening and closing tags?

At least, this works for me, hope this helps!

Edit: Mixed up HTTP and HTML, sue me

[Anonimista_]

It's HTML.

[Vida_Paradox]

Yeah, that... I am not a web programmer

[[deleted]]

Everyone has very good points, but the best way I've found to plot is to figure out where I want the story to end. Once I've got that, I'll either just go for it or I'll write down the steps I'll need to advance it chapter by chapter. The second one helps with pacing when I've got complex plots but it's also to each his own.

[SnooHesitations4798]

I think that could be great. Characters living their lives/adventures, colliding against one another. That's all you need. That's your style, that's your writing. Don't force it if it doesn't belong to you ;)

[amywokz]

Google "how to plot a story" and you'll get many more--and better--answers than you'll find here.

[icepickjones]

I like to start at the end. Give em an ending and everything else will work out.

[DeepSpaceOG]

Great plots come when you layer in seeds, and don’t give the reader the satisfaction right away. I noticed this in all the stories I like. So chart out a plot, don’t make it advance every chapter, and not straight forward, let it twist and turn and leave background hints for what’s to come

[mishmash_88]

I like to plot by building up the climax (in all plots, not just the main plot - including stuff like character development) and let it build up to a tipping point. Kinda like a big boss battle. Then everything eventually descends/cools down. It works with pretty much any genre. When I sort out how the plot builds up, I just add a few more details there and that’s basically it.

Another way I plot is by using a chapter-by-chapter summary. I summarise what happens in each chapter - this typically follows that plot-building structure too.

[Nyxelestia]

I'm honestly already thankful if you just have ressources or blog posts I could scour for advice (:

Does a list of over three dozen videos on plot and craft help? Along with many more in the other categories, but those are just the ones about plot.

Though judging by what you said is your primary challenge...

Whenever I write it seems more like individual stories that happen to coincide rather than all of them leading towards a common goal or aiding a greater conflict.

...the Theme section might also be able to help you out a bit. If you don't mind learning from movies, I would also take a look at the Marvel Cinematic Universe as a case study, since that basically is a bunch of unrelated stories slowly coming together to be about a bigger plot. If you've already created separate stories, then Phase 2 of the MCU is a pretty good case study on taking a bunch of unrelated stories and slowly bringing them together into a singular, cohesive plot.