Tuesday's Writer's Tip - Plots in summary #BWLAuthor #MFRWAuthor #Plots #Necessity

 Been writing about Plots anf yhe many different ones for many months. Just a few things to clear up. A plot is necessary to a good story. There are as many plots , and some are nearly the same. Just a small point in  their journey changed and you have a different plot. What the writer must do is determine which plot serves the purpose.. Remember this "A plot is just a plan to take the characters from the beginning to the end

Cliches -- Brought on By Becoming Your Own Critique Partner

Someone once said "I've never met a cliche I didn't like." Not sure who but that's a true statement. I've found cliches useful when writing and also when doing crossword puzzles. The real problem with using them when I write is finding all and getting rid of them. There are more than those nice little phrases such as white as snow, or blue as the sky. Cliches come in other flavors. There are cliche characters, effects, scenes and plots.

Some writers have made great use of cliche characters. I know I have. The grouchy nurse, the kindly doctor, the tough detective. Perhaps if these characters are just background people they can remain as cliches. If they have a purpose in the story they need to have a bit of individuality and personality.

Effects are a character's reaction to an event or a situation. Take the character's reaction during a lovemaking scene. Like fireworks. Soaring to reach the sky. We've all used them. What about battle scenes. Gut clenched. Try using a surprise when a character reacts.

Scenes can become cliched. The first meeting of the hero and the heroine often rings with the same words or the same actions. Find a way to change this. Instead of having the meeting be a comedy or a tragedy look for a way to show the expectations skewed. Can be a lot of fun devising ways to show the discovery of a body in a mystery or the plague in a space opera or the magical events in a fantasy.

There really are cliched plots. Pick up a book and begin reading. All of a sudden it hits you that you've read this story before. While there are only so many plots and so many ways to reach the end what the writer has to do is put a personal spin on a story. Boy meets girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl. We've read this story a million times but some writers find ways to make this seem fresh rather than cliched.

Finding ways to turn cliches from stale to fresh is the trick. When writing, remember the time, the setting and the genre and find that twist to make your story leave the road paved with cliches.

Writing Tip - Plot

I once read where there are only three basic plots and I think this is true. Man against Man. Man against Himself and Man against the environment. I also read ages ago that one could use elements other than the one chosen. This is particularly true in sweeping novels.

Man against man comes up frequently in romances, fantasy, mysteries and other works. Two people have the same goal and only one can obtain it. Or two people have opposite goals and only one can win. When there is a villain in the story man against man comes into focus.

Man against himself often us used in psychological dramas. The protagonist has to fight against some deficit in his own character. Gambling, alcoholism and greed come readily to mind. Threads of this can be fed into the man against man scenario adding depth to the plot.

Man against the environment comes up often in disaster stories. Or in the protagonist taking on a social problem. The environment is more than ecology or storms. Part of the man against the environment comes from the protagonist pitting himself against nature, Think of the Perfect Storm. Elements of this can be woven into a story that is mainly man against man or man against himself.

Much is in how the author uses these elements. And there is another element that is vital when deciding how to plot the novel and that is Time. While a novel may follow generations of a family or years as a person, some novels happen in a day, a week or a month. Before beginning the story setting a time deadline on when you'll reach the end of the story can be good. Do the events occur over months, weeks or even days. Knowing the time limit on the characters can add depth to the story.

Plotting Basics

Some people find plotting to be difficult. One thing to remember is that a plot is like a road map that takes you from home to the final destination. While some of us would get in the car and just drive, most people at least have a vague idea of where they want to go. The problems with having no road map are multiple but the two most common ones are driving in circles and coming to a dead end.

Before a writer starts to map a plot there are some things needed. The first is an idea. Writers are often asked where they get their ideas. I usually tell them the problem is not getting ideas but in finding too many and deciding which ones either interest me or might be marketable. Ideas often come from people, places or things. A chance meeting with a friend, observing someone doing something strange or interesting. Visiting a new scene or even an old one. Reading an article or a chance phrase in a book. magazinem newspaper or on the internet. This is where ideas are found. Everywhere and anywhere.

Before the road map can be constructed, there are some other things one must need. First are the characters, at least the major ones. Minor characters can arrive in a story as needed and walk-ons as well. Besides the general material one needs to know about the characters like physical description, career choice, education, there are two important things to discover. What do they want and Why do they want this particular thing. Doing this for all the major characters will help when it comes time to develop complications. Characters can want more than one thing,and their reasons may be in conflict. One also has to know where the story will be set and when or the time period. These will all help develop the how or the map to the destination. Do not be surprised if some of these things change during the writing. Characters like people are subject to change.

Next week, we'll start designing the road map.

About genres and subgenres -- Romantic Suspense

I read a lot and I read in a variety of genres so I've decided to look at the genres and see what I like and don't like in the books I've read. Romance will be my first and Romantic Suspense is the first subgenre, probably because I don't write in this area. I've done one suspense book, Obsessions, but that's a medical suspense which is a different sort of thing.
Romantic Suspense has two focuses, one is the romance and the other is the suspense. Combining them can be tricky and falling short can happen easily. I'm not going to mention specific books because this isn't a review site. I'm just going to look at what I like in these books and how they fall flat for me.

What I like about Romantic Suspense are villains who are powerful and really evil. I want to see the hero and heroine face someone who is worthy of the fight to the finish. I love to see the sexual tension develop between the hero and heroine as they face adversity. There are a number of kinds of romantic suspense. There can be as the enemy spies both foreign and industrial, criminals of all kinds. There can be bad guys from the past that come to haunt a hero or heroine's present. The ones I enjoy the most are those with tension that carries through the book that keep the pages turning. This is a real talent.

Now on to the things that bother me a lot. The first is figuring who the villain is if this is being kept a secret. I remember reading one romantic suspense and I knew who the bad guy was by page three. Needless to say I didn't finish the book. A second is when the heroine or the hero is "too stupid to live." I've read so many of these where the heroine or hero goes into a situation tha no reasonable person would entertain. A third is when the love scene occurs at a time when no reasonable person would make love. Another is erratic writing. I remember reading one where the suspense elements were riveting and drew me forward, only to come on to a hero/heroine scene with back and forth dialogue that was supposed to be amusing but broke the tone of the book.

Plots are the backbone of good romantic suspense. There are two kind of plots here that drive me to toss the book away. One is the simplistic plot where the suspense is only a vehicle for the romance. The suspense part could be solved too quickly and the romance becomes the major part of the book. The other is a plot so convoluted that the reader has no chance of every decipering it. The convoluted plot often forces the hero, heroine or both to act in ways that make them appear to be fools.