The Craft of Writing: Plot

rmthunter · #1 02-02-2005, 05:20 AM

My problem is always trying to avoid having my plot read like the word sounds. It's also a problem, sometimes, reconciling what I want to happen with what the characters want to do. I ran across this link at Scribe's; she says she's used it successfully. It's called "the Snowflake method":

http://www.rsingermanson.com/html/the_snowflake.html

If it seems kind of cold-blooded to you, just think of it as drawing from fractal geometry and chaos theory.

Bob

rmthunter · #2 02-02-2005, 08:09 AM

OK -- I spent about four hours yesterday pulling The Book into shape -- I had all these fragments and sketches and finished chapters all over the place and I was getting lost, lost, lost! in my own story.

Dave Gerrold recommends using index cards in plotting: you just write an event on a card and then figure out the order in which they should happen; just lay them out on a table. I use it from time to time, as I did yesterday, and this time it really worked for me (it hasn't always been that succesful in the past).

I now have a stack of about 100 cards that holds a complete outline of Mist in the Mountains (working title for Book I of "The High Valleys," a/k/a "The Book"). The earlier sections are pretty detailed (since most of them are written, or at least sketched). It gets looser as the story progresses, but now I have a good take on where sections go (I do not necessarily write things in order). And, as more and more is completed, I can count on the looser sections to get more detailed as I fill in and also as I figure out what scenes I need to write in order for things to make sense.

I have also dispensed with a whole pile of little scraps of paper and two-page "story lines." Fragments are in the binder (my life is controlled by binders -- many, many binders) in roughly the places they should occur, and I now have a better idea of how, or whether, they will work as written.

Now, of course, I have no excuse for not sitting down and writing the damned thing, which is the part I hate. *sigh*

Bob

PS -- for someone like me, whose thinking is normally completely nonlinear and often leads to nothing concrete, this is also giving me a real sense of accomplishment. I actually have something to show for all the daydreaming.

anderclayton · #3 02-02-2005, 08:14 AM

Hmm...

Stephen King goes the opposite route in his book. Basically his idea is that plot is unnecessary per se and instead things should be approached from a character perspective. The plot finds its own way based on what the characters would do. I'm not exactly sold on this idea but so far (and I'm probably not nearly as far as you on my own book--I'm still in the working things through stage) I seem to have a fairly loose style.

Ander

anderclayton · #4 02-02-2005, 08:22 AM

Hmmm... If all of that seems rather vague and amorpheous, that was kinda my impression of what King was talking about in some respects. Also I'm up a bit late so am feeling a little vague and amorpheous. I'm not knocking plot or anything of the sort.

Personally though, in spite of the fact that I understand the idea and concept of plotting things out on paper and taking notes, I have lots and tons of trouble doing that sort of thing. I tend to develop things in my head and then just write them out.

Right now I've been working on developing my setting (worldbuilding) and have got some of the characters in mind and am trying to work through some plot concept. I even think that I might have a narrative style in mind to work the story within. Still batting that one around though.

Ander

rmthunter · #5 02-02-2005, 08:33 AM

I'm also a strong believer in character-driven books. One reason that it's taken me so long to get to this stage (and it's been several years in the making, most of it false starts and universe-building) is that I've only started to get a handle on who these people are -- at least the small group who are actually driving the story.

I'm not at all sure I'm comfortable with letting the characters have complete control -- I'm the author, dammit, I get a vote. And I have a marked tendency to focus on character to the exclusion of everything else, so I wind up with these nice character studies in which no one does anything. (But then, that's the reason you throw monkeywrenches into their plans.)

Gerrold also, by the way, has a great chapter on character building, in which you just sit down and answer a lot of questions about the character -- what does he wear, who are his parents, did he go to college, that sort of thing, and then you sit down and have a conversation with the character (which I tried with Raven, who refused to talk about the things I was most interested in and kept changing the subject; Gerrold said that Jim McCarthy, the hero of The War Against the Cthorr, immediately attacked him with a knife). But that's a thread on character. which I'm sure someone will get around to starting.

Bob

rmthunter · #6 02-02-2005, 08:41 AM

Quote:

anderclayton said

Personally though, in spite of the fact that I understand the idea and concept of plotting things out on paper and taking notes, I have lots and tons of trouble doing that sort of thing. I tend to develop things in my head and then just write them out.

That's why it took me this long to get to this stage -- I finally just had to put it in some sort of order. I have no success at all starting out with a story line and sticking to it. I tend to start with an image or a scene and build from there.

Quote:

Right now I've been working on developing my setting (worldbuilding) and have got some of the characters in mind and am trying to work through some plot concept. I even think that I might have a narrative style in mind to work the story within. Still batting that one around though.

Ander

The unified field theory of composition. Yeah -- I have to have a whole gestalt in my head before I can even get started with anything substantial.

Bob

anderclayton · #7 02-02-2005, 04:46 PM

Quote:

Gerrold also, by the way, has a great chapter on character building,

OK. I've got the book reserved:p

Ander

**MrsNormanMaine**[$] · #8 02-03-2005, 10:58 PM

I've never had any trouble writing plot or character. I always have a devil of a time with descriptive prose. I suppose that's why I mainly write short pieces or theater. It's easier.

MNM !queen

anderclayton · #9 02-03-2005, 11:04 PM

I don't have that much trouble with character per se. Plot a bit more though.

I do have some trouble with dialogue though so I'd probably not be one for the theater...

Ander

rmthunter · #10 02-03-2005, 11:13 PM

I'm finding it best to focus heavily on characters to begin with and let the plot develop itself from that (once I have a basic situation or someplace they need to go), except, of course, I have to throw in enough complications so the characters have something to do. In the case of my organization session with The Book, I had sketches all the way to the end of the first volume, and so I knew that, at this point at least, there are certain places everything has to be at certain points -- I just had to figure out when those points were in the story. (The introduction of one character just got kicked back two chapters, and may get kicked back again.)

And of course, everything after the first five chapters or so is subject to change as the characters and the situation develop.

It's all about monkeywrenches.

Bob

rmthunter · #11 02-03-2005, 11:16 PM

It also occurs to me that, now that I have the broad outline in place I can go to the cards for each chapter and refine and flesh out what happens in that chapter -- i.e., more and smaller events -- and then go write them. (Or, if I come up with a great scene, I have a better idea of where it's going to work.)

Bob

erik_kosberg · #12 02-04-2005, 01:36 AM

There’s something to be said for Raymond Chandler’s suggestion to have a man with a gun enter the room.

rmthunter · #13 02-04-2005, 08:04 AM

What if there are no guns in your universe?

anderclayton · #14 02-04-2005, 08:09 AM

Well then how it got there would certainly be a tale to tell!

:p

Ander

rmthunter · #15 02-04-2005, 08:26 AM

Careful, Ander -- you're edging very close to being the first one critiqued.

Bob

erik_kosberg · #16 02-04-2005, 11:15 AM

Have a man with a rock enter the room. :p

**AuntieEmma**[$] · #17 02-04-2005, 03:39 PM

Quote:

E.M. Forster, in an often-quoted bit, said

Let us define a plot. We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. 'The king died and then the queen died,' is a story. 'The king died, and then the queen died of grief' is a plot.

http://www.musicandmeaning.com/forster/quotes.html

So, if there are no guns and no rocks, bring in some royalty.

rmthunter · #18 02-04-2005, 08:22 PM

Dead royalty?

rmthunter · #19 02-05-2005, 07:50 AM

Quote:

MrsNormanMaine said

I've never had any trouble writing plot or character. I always have a devil of a time with descriptive prose. I suppose that's why I mainly write short pieces or theater. It's easier.

MNM !queen

I have no problem with descriptions at all -- in fact, they can take over my narrative if I'm not careful. Hmmm -- maybe a new thread.

Bob