Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Tuesday's Writer's Tip Planning the Plot #MFRWAuthor #BWLAuthor #Writing #Plot


4 Plot.  Just remember a plot is just a plan to take your characters from the beginning to the end.

Now you have your major actors, the secondary characters and those who are there for a purpose. The last group you may not know much about until you reach a point where they are needed. In my current work, some of the secondary characters are barefy mentioned except by name in the opening paragraphs but they will play a role later in the story.
You know the time and the where of the story and the what the characters want and the reasons they want these things.
What you’ve reaches is the how.

The How or the plot has a beginning, a middle and an end. Each of these parts has some important tasks for the writer to complete. Both the beginning and the end are shorter than the dreaded middle and this is where you can get bogged down.

In general, the Beginning shows the major characters, the things like the season of the year and a bit about the where the characters are. The problems of the major characters need to be touched on and their reasons for the action they are about to take should be hinted about.

The middle is where the complications come in. In the book I’m working on now, the middle is where the main characters have a change in their goals. This change comes at the end of the beginning. During this time, you can show them coming close to their goal only to have something happen that takes them away from that goal. Often this can become boring and I have a solution to this. When my characters seem to be cruising along, I bring in an incident that may or may not impinge on their goal. One such incident shows my heroine’s bihorn (her riding beast) injured so there must be a stop in what can be dangerous territory.
Then you come to the end. During this time one character or perhaps both experience a moment when they know they will fail. This is called the black moment. From there they have to hike up their britches and decide to fight. This leads to the defining moment and the conclusion. While in romance, this is usually a happily ever after or a happy for now it must be satisfactory.

What you need to do here is list your five ingredients.
Characters, Settings, Time, Desires and Reasons. Then you’re ready for the next steps.  Listing them and adding things to what you’ve written in the other exercises will give you a stronger story and help when you plan each section.

For me, this is the question asking time. Where should I start the story? Should it be the hero or the heroine up front? How do the pair met? How do they react to each other? Are there problems I can think of to throw in the middle that will advance the plot or delay the ending?
Let’s look at a few of my answers. There were several possibilities for the start. I could begin with the scene with her father telling her she’s to be bonded to Petan. I could start with the meet between the heroine and the hero? I could start with the hero leaving the Desert Riders. I could use the heroine’s escape. After looking these over, I decided the heroine had the greatest need at the beginning of the story so starting with her would make for more tension. Knowing the hero has nothing more than feeling restless, that wouldn’t drive the story forward.

More questions. Did I want the villain to have a viewpoint. I decided against this.

For your assignment consider which character should open the story and how the story should begin. If you can think of any complications to throw in further in the story, do.
Some of the further complications I thought of were either hero or heroine being caught by the villain. An illness for one of the major characters. A quarrel between the pair sending them in different directions. Not being believed. A duel between the hero and heroine. A second duel. I knew there could be chances for more duels in the book since duels were the way problems were solved in the culture of this world.

Once I had a number of questions and possible complications. I was ready to move on.



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