How will you think through your plot?
Where do you start?
Conceptualizing your plot to make it great can be tough if you do not know where to start and don’t have any emergent ideas.
Hopefully this little go through will help you spark some ideas for your plot that will take you to the next level in your story or book. Your first actionable steps for your plot.
1. Start your plot with a big problem
Most readers don’t care about your characters and your world-building without some major problem that needs solving.
A reader wants to go through a journey where some major plot problem is resolved.
Depending on how you choose to resolve the major issues, the reader feels a certain way about the story and your plot.
So focus on your big climactic problem first because that is the most important and pivotal part of any great story.
Keep in mind your major problem doesn’t have to be human. It doesn’t have to be a good guy vs bad guy. It could be human vs nature.
A great hurricane is coming unless you can stop it or if not help others and yourself survive.
What is the BIG PROBLEM you are going to give your characters and how are they going to solve it?
Where does it lead them? And why?
Think about the potential consequences of solving this problem.
What did they have to sacrifice to get it done?
Did they lose anyone along the way?
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2. Focus on the major goal.
Your major goal goes hand in hand with your big major plot problem.
If your hero’s goal is to stop the bad guy from destroying the kingdom then your problem is the bad guy and his major plans to destroy the kingdom but the goal of the hero is to stop the bad guy.
You can see how these are closely tied together and extremely similar.
And indeed they should be.
If your major problem and your protagonist goal don’t go hand in hand there is a major plot problem.
Unless you’re writing a comedy of course, then your character’s main goal could be ridiculously far from the major problem and it ends up being surprising, funny, and entertaining for your reader.
Going with the example above if a great hurricane is coming unless you can stop it or if not help others and yourself survive.
The great problem is the hurricane, but your character’s goal is to survive and help others survive.
Maybe their major goal is to save loved ones in harm’s way.
Think about the big goal and big major problem makes us naturally think about characters.
What major goals can you give the main characters based on the problems they face?
Does your character have major goals before the big problem arises that they must forfeit in order to stop the major problem?
Interested in starting a blog of your own? Check out Bluehost.
If you enjoy planning out your plot and writing fiction, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
Try Grammarly, The Free tool that should be in every writer’s toolbelt.
3. Choose 1 to 3 or 3 to 5 major characters for your plot
This doesn’t have to be religious, but starting with 1 character to follow and explain is an easy place to start. 3-5 characters is a good place to start also
It gives you something to work with and draw from and it can always change as you go. Like we said it isn’t an “it must be this way every time” rule as much as it is helpful to start somewhere and get going than to be otherwise paralyzed by an infinite amount of choices.
Just start with one character and usually, the others will naturally follow. And don’t be afraid to change them in the editing process to make them more coherent with the entirety of their existence in your story.
Use your major problem to help you naturally create the personality and persona of your main characters by the choices they make based on what they then end up facing.
Even as you think about your major problem you can start to visualize your main character starting to live through it. It’s only natural to imagine things this way.
Interested in starting a blog of your own? Check out Bluehost.
If you enjoy planning out your plot and writing fiction, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
Try Grammarly, The Free tool that should be in every writer’s toolbelt.
4. Start writing
Once you’ve got these major ideas in mind it’s a great idea to go ahead and start to put the pen to the page or the fingers to the keyboard.
Try to not go a day without writing at least 100 new words. That’s a pretty attainable goal. Don’t get caught up in continual revising when your starting. Focus on getting words on the page that you can work with.
Just let it flow and worry about changing it later.
Now get out there and write something!
Hope this helps!
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Interested in starting a blog of your own? Check out Bluehost.
If you enjoy planning out your plot and writing fiction, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
Try Grammarly, The Free tool that should be in every writer’s toolbelt.
5 Steps to Conceptualize Your Plot
5 Steps to Conceptualize Your Plot
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Interested in starting a blog of your own? Check out Bluehost.
If you enjoy planning out your plot and writing fiction, you might love owning a domain of your own where you can write about it? Ever want to own your own domain name (Yourname.com)?
Bluehost hosts your blog so that you can own your domain and make money blogging. Check them out only if you’re interested in making money blogging; otherwise, go for a free blog instead 🙂
Try Grammarly, The Free tool that should be in every writer’s toolbelt.
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