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On plotting
Mar. 30th, 2007 06:08 pmI am...ahem...reading a couple of books at the moment. I am reading them with a VERY careful and critical eye, but today I mean "critical" in the sense of, what can I learn from this? I am thinking very hard about my own plot structure, and most especially, beginnings. Here are a few of my thoughts:
Just because a lot of agents and/or editors say that they never, ever want to see portals, magical devices, dead parents, episodic plots, and people waking up in the morning and thinking, doesn't mean it's impossible to publish such a book. Despite all that, some of them still squeak through, and end up making it big.
When something weird is going on and it's extremely obvious to the reader and should be obvious to the MC, the reader wants to throttle the MC. Please, make your MCs somewhat bright! (I don't mean the kind of irony where the MC doesn't know, and it's supposed to be funny or whatever--just straight-out characters that don't make you want to shake them.) Let your MC notice and try to do something about it. For a great example, see chapter 1 of Things Not Seen. He meets the problem head-on and immediately goes to work on it.
A story where a lot of things are going on is not necessarily the same as a layered story. If you can remove one of those elements without tearing up the plot, maybe it doesn't belong in the story at all. Sometimes in books (er, usually those written by adult writers trying their hand at kids' books, or writers with MOVIE! MOVIE! in mind) give their MC some kind of inner difficulty (usually something like the parents are breaking up, or ever since X died, a parent has stopped paying attention to the kid). But somehow it doesn't get fully integrated with the plot. It becomes a frame. Sad kid, story happens, ta-da! Now they have the answer, and in the last page, they feel all fuzzy and better about the parent or whatever. I love books where the MC has both an inner and an outer plotline. But the two have got to be integrated, the different plot lines have got to bleed into each other. You've got to have that complexity, or it's going to come off feeling two-dimensional.
On being "drawn into the story": Something has to happen, and soon.
On "feeling the stakes": I don't think it's enough to have action. You need causative elements. What does your MC want most? What will s/he do to get it? (I'm thinking of first chapters here.) What does that set in motion? Which brings me to the most important thought that I had (and which is leading me to revise chapter 1 of book 1, even though I'm wanting to get back to the WIP):
"Stakes" implies more than just a bad situation. It's a situation that requires conscious action by the main character--with consequences.
Just because a lot of agents and/or editors say that they never, ever want to see portals, magical devices, dead parents, episodic plots, and people waking up in the morning and thinking, doesn't mean it's impossible to publish such a book. Despite all that, some of them still squeak through, and end up making it big.
When something weird is going on and it's extremely obvious to the reader and should be obvious to the MC, the reader wants to throttle the MC. Please, make your MCs somewhat bright! (I don't mean the kind of irony where the MC doesn't know, and it's supposed to be funny or whatever--just straight-out characters that don't make you want to shake them.) Let your MC notice and try to do something about it. For a great example, see chapter 1 of Things Not Seen. He meets the problem head-on and immediately goes to work on it.
A story where a lot of things are going on is not necessarily the same as a layered story. If you can remove one of those elements without tearing up the plot, maybe it doesn't belong in the story at all. Sometimes in books (er, usually those written by adult writers trying their hand at kids' books, or writers with MOVIE! MOVIE! in mind) give their MC some kind of inner difficulty (usually something like the parents are breaking up, or ever since X died, a parent has stopped paying attention to the kid). But somehow it doesn't get fully integrated with the plot. It becomes a frame. Sad kid, story happens, ta-da! Now they have the answer, and in the last page, they feel all fuzzy and better about the parent or whatever. I love books where the MC has both an inner and an outer plotline. But the two have got to be integrated, the different plot lines have got to bleed into each other. You've got to have that complexity, or it's going to come off feeling two-dimensional.
On being "drawn into the story": Something has to happen, and soon.
On "feeling the stakes": I don't think it's enough to have action. You need causative elements. What does your MC want most? What will s/he do to get it? (I'm thinking of first chapters here.) What does that set in motion? Which brings me to the most important thought that I had (and which is leading me to revise chapter 1 of book 1, even though I'm wanting to get back to the WIP):
"Stakes" implies more than just a bad situation. It's a situation that requires conscious action by the main character--with consequences.
