Last week we talked about how the development of the plot for your novel is important, and how you could write a plot that can be one page, 20 pages or more. Or none at all (written out) if you have the ideas in your head.
A plot can take many shapes, but there are a few key elements that it should have that could be called the “DNA” of your story.
The first is; what does your hero or heroine want, what is their goal?
The second is; what will happen if they fail to achieve their objective? To keep readers turning the pages, this should be fairly desperate and dramatic. In other words…if they fail they lose a lot.
The third is the hurdles, what stands in the way of reaching their goal?
To develop suspense it is advisable to withhold some specifics from the reader as the story goes along. For example if you have a science fiction story about a monster, you usually don’t reveal everything about the monster by the time of page 10, what it looks like what it’s up to and so on.
You instead might have bad things happening to people because of the monster and then later on in the story reveal its true nature. In the movie Jaws people were being attacked before we actually saw the shark.
In its most simple form a plot has three building blocks, the setup of the story (background and introduction of the characters), the confrontation (the trouble that is happening to the characters) and the resolution (they either succeed or fail).
In most cases you will try to withhold your climax, the resolution of the story for good or bad, until near the finish of the book. This is not much different from any form of entertainment, for example a musical stage show in which the big musical number is withheld until the last of the show (called the grand finale).
Some writers start a novel with its end and work their way backwards. They figure out what the final outcome of the story will be; then install the earlier scenes that result in that ending.
The resolution of your story should be important. The monster dies, the hero wins over the villain; the couple finds true love and so on. But a successful story doesn’t have to always be resolved. You can leave it unanswered, for example if you want to write another book with the same character or a series. Your monster disappears, in the case of the 1958 movie The Blob, it was parachuted into the North Pole leaving open the possibility it could reappear (they even had a question mark appear on the screen).
In my novel Infested Waters the sea spiders that were attacking and eating people are poisoned with chemical window cleaner at the ending, but the reader doesn’t know for certain if they’ve been totally exterminated. I’ve left myself open for the possibility of another book, Infested Waters 2.
Each scene should be a logical and believable extension of the scene before it, connected together like a chain.
You can have two parallel story lines. In one chapter what is happening to your main character, and then in the next chapter something that is happening to someone somewhere else that will have an important impact on your main character from the previous chapter.
The two parallel story lines (occurring in alternating chapters) like two forks in a road can later meet and become one. A secondary storyline that runs parallel to the main story is called a “subplot.”
Try to balance your story so there isn’t too much action or too much non-action all in one block that goes on and on. Instead alternate, like hills and valleys. For example, portray struggle, then achievement past the struggle, then a calm period, then a setback or bad luck, then more struggle, and so on.…. to build tension.
Pitfalls to avoid…. You have characters you introduce as though they are important to the story and then they just disappear completely with no explanation.
A subplot can also disappear with no resolution.
In each part of your story from the main plot to the subplot, and the characters in them, the reader must find out what ultimately happens to them all.
I’ll finish with some great advice that I have always remembered.
Even if you can’t make a story sing (the greatest story ever), at the very least, make it clear to the reader.
John Sammon is a freelance writer and the author of 41 books, many of which can be found here on Amazon. He is a resident of El Dorado Hills. This commentary is part of a series on the journey of self publishing.
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