YA Workshop Notes, Week 3 : Plot

Last week we discussed the one thing I’ve had to work hardest at in my own writing: plot.

Despite all my hard work, I’ve come to the conclusion that most of us worry too much about plot. There are very few musts as far as plot is concerned.

Plot Musts

1. Have one.

So yes, make sure you have one. But don’t fret too much over whether you’re doing it right.

A plot arc, at its most basic, requires just two points:

1. A character who desperately wants something.
2. The same character, having changed as a result of trying to get it.

In between, the character is acted upon by forces internal and external- his own psychological makeup, and the people and circumstances of his life.

To arrive at a satisfying plot arc, you need to get real about this character and what he or she wants. You need to be honest about your motivations for writing the story. You need to care enough to get to know all the characters of your story well enough that their actions ring true.

Do that, and your characters will generally act and react together to create story. Characters are pretty good at group work if you let them do what they do.

If you don’t, you can really mess up your sense of direction, and make plot practically impossible for yourself. Plot-destroying habits appear in the following forms:

• Overprotecting our characters. Keeping them out of harm’s way, or resolving conflict as quickly as possible.
• Endowing our characters with too many positive qualities. If her journey is complete before the story begins, how can there be any story? For instance, a hero has to overcome something in order for us to understand why his actions are heroic.
• Leaning too heavily on a message or lesson. When was the last time you sat down and thought to yourself “boy, I could really use a talking to. I think I’ll read a lecture on human behaviour.”
• Refusing to make decisions, or rejecting what our characters are suggesting to us.
• In YA, letting adult characters interfere to the point that the young character can’t or won’t do anything.

It comes down to embracing imperfection. Life is messy. A story takes disorder and conflict and builds towards resolution. It takes discomfort and turns it into problem solving. It takes a stagnant situation and fills it with new ideas. That’s what makes it satisfying. Fiction is a tool that lets us explore the great WHAT Ifs of life.

And teenagers crave WHAT IF?! In fiction we can give them a safe place to test out ideas and ideals, even the terrible and impractical ones, via our characters.

We can train ourselves to take decisions that allow plot and story flow more easily.

• Amplify. The thing your character wants– make her want it badly. The hang-ups she has, make them deeply ingrained and hard to overcome. The conflicts she runs into- make sure she has to work to resolve them.
• Push your characters. Test them. Let them fail so we can find out how they recover.
• Nurture conflict. Let your character have a bad day, and snap at his sister. Let your character be awkward and embarrass herself in front of the school bully.
• Make the decision you’d avoid in real life. Step into the haunted woods. Chug that beer. Punch that girl in the face. Yell at the teacher. Ask the guy out. Whatever.
• Look closely at your own motivations for writing. Are you horrified at something that’s happening in the world. Afraid? Angry? Mischievous? Push it. Don’t pre-correct the situation by trying to write a perfect example world. Explore your darker emotions and give them to your characters. Instead of making a character righteous because he’s angry, make him ANGRY, and give him the blindness, impulsiveness or shortness that comes with that anger.
• Let the story just happen. If a character seems to “suggest” something you never planned, let her follow through with it. Don’t tie her hands behind her back and tell her to suggest something more like your plans.
• Try things out. Mess around. You have to bring a sense of play to figuring out the story.
• When you edit, take out the boring parts. More on this in Revision week.

But wait a minute, you might think. “I thought this was supposed to be about plot. Why are you talking about character again.”

Aha, you’ve got me. I think all fiction is about character.

The Practical, How-To Part

Now, the nitty gritty of dealing with plot, especially in subsequent drafts.

I know that the most training most people have had with plot is in high school, where they show you this graph, with the beginning, climax, and denouement. And then they tell you to write an outline of the story, and then write to the outline.

But it’s not usually that easy. I say, rather than try to be clairvoyant, just take good notes.

Go ahead and write down the start point and end point of your arc. Do it in bullet points. no one really cares what your final graph will look like. We read stories not graphs.

If you have some idea about where your character is going to get into trouble, learn, or triumph, write those in too. Don’t panic. You can change them later.

As you fumble and play through your first draft, revise your list and add to it. This way you can keep an eye on where things are going, or if you’re missing anything that needs to be filled in.

When I write, I go back and forth. I’ll write for a long while. Then after a week or two of that, I’ll feel exhausted and not know where to go next with my story. Then I’ll go back to my list, fill in the blanks with all the new stuff I just wrote, and see if it suggests any natural direction. Then I’ll write those points down, and then try out new scenes to fit them. Back and forth, exploring and plotting.

In a nutshell:

1. Do keep an outline.
2. Let the outline change.
3. There’s no wrong number of drafts.
4. You can’t possibly know the whole story up-front before you write it.

Writing Exercise

For either:
- The book you’ve been using for reference
- A fairy tale you know well

Analyze the plot. Write down a bullet point list of everything important that happens. Pinpoint the major choices characters make, and make note of the rising and falling emotional pitch of the story. Let’s take our favourite stories apart and see what gears are inside, making them work.

Resources

If you’d like to get all technical and read up on different approaches to plot, consider the following:

1. Kurt Vonnegut on the shapes of stories:

   Kurt Vonnegut at the Blackboard from Lapham’s Quarterly.

2. How-to books and advice from The Plot Whisperer
3. Seminars, books and workshops by Robert McKee, on whom the screenwriting instructor in the film, Adaptation was based… he’s a real person, who actually gives that seminar in real life.

Parting Words of Wisdom

“When designing a profluent plot, the writer works in one of three ways. He borrows some traditional story or action drawn from life; he works backwards from his climax; or her works forward from an initial situation”– John Gardner, The Art of Fiction

“Two final points: Embrace Drama. Just as important: Embrace improbability.”– Stephen Koch, Modern Library Writer’s Workshop

“Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”– E.L. Doctorow

“The development of relationship creates plot” – Flannery O’Connor, Mystery & Manners