Write Great Fiction--Plot & Structure

by James Scott Bell

  Chapter two, however, is usually an action chapter. It moves. It hooks the reader’s interest immediately. There is not as much exposition, which lends a bit of mystery to the proceedings.

  Take a novel, any novel, and open it to chapter two. Does it get you interested?

  Switch your first two chapters.

  Make any changes you have to so the new first chapter makes sense.

  Consider scrapping your original chapter one altogether. Let the exposition come out later, naturally. You’ll probably find you don’t need it all anyway.

  THE STEP-BACK TECHNIQUE

  Your best writing will almost always emerge during the heat of passion. When you have kicked your inner critic out of the way, giving your imagination full range, you create new and exciting things.

  But at some point, you need to step back and see what you’ve got.

  The best time to do that, in my experience, is when you’ve got an Act I. In a screenplay, that is usually by page 30 or so. In a novel, it can be anywhere from two to ten chapters. When you sense you have moved into the main conflict of the story, you have completed Act I.

  This is the place to step back because your story will be driven by the elements you set up here. If they are not strong enough, you may not have enough power fuel to get through the rest of the book. It pays, then, to spend some time getting this part right.

  Keys to the Step-Back Technique

  Here’s a quick look at the fundamentals of this technique:

  Write Act I in the heat of passion.

  Put it away for a few days, and then come back to it.

  Step back, and read your first act to see what you’ve got. Read like a first-time reader.

  Conduct an analysis of what you have by asking yourself the following questions:

  Is it enough?

  What more do I need?

  Can I see the possibility of conflict through the rest of the book?

  Do I like my lead character?

  Am I excited about writing the rest of the story?

  If not, why not? Can I change anything to make me excited?

  Make some decisions, then write the rest of the first draft without stopping.

  UNANTICIPATE

  Because we’ve had centuries of storytelling, accelerating to fever pitch in the twentieth century — with books, radio dramas, movies, and television adding to the deluge — our audience is much more attuned to plot developments. They can anticipate the hackneyed and the tired from miles away.

  Your job then is to fool them.

  But how?

  You do the opposite of what they expect. You “unanticipate.”

  Here’s how it works. You conceive your scene or plotline. You put down the first thing that comes to your mind. It will most likely be something that’s been done because you are part of that vast audience of readers you are appealing to.

  Our minds jump to clichés. That’s probably what you’ll come up with first.

  Then you make a list of three, four, or five alternatives to your original conception. You brainstorm.

  Say you’re working on a scene where a husband bursts in to find his wife in the arms of his best friend. What does he do?

  One answer might be this: He goes to the bedroom to get a gun and shoot the two of them.

  We’ve seen that before. It’s a cliché. Readers anticipate something like this. What can we do to throw a little unanticipation into the mix?

  Let’s brainstorm on the reaction part. Instead of the usual, the husband might:

  Welcome his friend. “Hey, nice to see you.”

  Walk out without a word.

  Run and jump out the window.

  The third alternative was one that flashed into my mind. I put it down, even thinking as I did that this was a bit too wild. Besides, what if the guy dies?

  And then it started to dawn on me that this could be the very unanticipated event that throws the readers for a real loop. You have a supposed leading character suddenly die like that?

  Hmm.

  And is he really dead?

  Hmm.

  Train yourself to make lists of alternatives when you come to major turning points. You can do this in your outlining or as you write. In either case, you’ll freshen up your plot.

  HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR PLOTTING EXPONENTIALLY

  Chess players who want to improve their game and their rating go through a series of drills every day for a period of time, drills designed to increase their awareness and tactics.

  Dancers practice routines, hour upon hour, in order to improve their art. Elite fighting forces drill relentlessly until everything becomes second nature to them.

  Go on down the line and you’ll find dozens of examples of a similar dynamic. So why should writing be any different?

  There is a drill you can do on your own that will give you huge returns in plotting ability. But like any worthwhile drill it’s work. Hard work.

  But if you will give yourself eight to twelve weeks to do this drill, you will get a huge return on your writing investment. Guaranteed.

  Here’s what you do:

  Step 1: Get half a dozen novels of the type you want to write. They can be novels you’ve already read or new ones. It doesn’t matter. When I went through this drill at the beginning of my career, I went to a used bookstore and bought an armload of paperbacks in the thriller genre.

  Step 2: Make a schedule for your eight- to twelve-week program, so you can stick to it. You’re going to have to give yourself time to read the six books through once and then spend approximately twelve hours analyzing and making notes on the books in a way I will show you, and then another six or so hours in reflection.

  Step 3: Read the first book. Read it for pleasure. Be the audience. When you finish it, spend about one day just thinking about it. Did you like it? Did it move you? Were the characters memorable? Did the plot hang together? Were there any times you felt the book dragged? And so forth. Make some notes on your answers.

  Step 4: Now read the second book. Take a day to think about that one, asking the same questions as you did in the previous step.

  Step 5: Read the rest of the books in the same fashion.

  Step 6: Now go back to the first book. You’re going to need a set of index cards for this. Go through the book scene by scene. A chapter may have more than one scene in it. Do this exercise by scenes. Mark the first index card with a “Number 1” in the upper right hand corner. If you ever drop the cards on the floor you’ll be able to put them back in the right order. For each scene, write the following information on a card: the setting; point-of-view character; a two-line scene summary; and scene type (action, reaction, setup, deepening, etc.). Does the end of the scene make you want to read on? Why or why not?

  Step 7: Repeat this drill for the rest of the books. You will now have six stacks of index cards completely outlining the scenes in six novels. Save these. They are gold. Over the years, you will come back to these cards and look them over as detailed in the next step.

  Step 8: Beginning with any stack you choose, go through the cards quickly, reading the information, remembering the scene, and going on to the next card. You are almost forming a movie in your head in fast motion. Run through the plot of the book this way. Ingrain it in your memory.

  Step 9: Do the same with the other stacks of index cards. At this point, you’re going to have an incredibly powerful new sense of plot bubbling in your brain. There’s still one more thing to do.

  Step 10: Lay out one set of cards in order on the floor. Divide the cards into the three-act structure. Using the information in chapter three of this book, try to identify the various beats required in the beginning, middle and end. Identify the scene or scenes that compose each doorway of no return. Repeat with the other novels that your leisure.

  Go celebrate. If you follow these ten steps, you will jump ahead of 99 percent of all the other aspiring writers out there, most of whom try to find out how to plot by trial and error. Not tha
t there’s anything wrong with that method if progress is being made. But you will have accomplished in twelve weeks what someone else in a similar position might take years to duplicate.

  INVERTING THE “RIFLE RULE”

  The Russian playwright Anton Chekhov had a famous rule that went something like this: If the curtain opens for Act I and there’s a rifle on the wall, it must be used at some point in the play. This is really a rule of expectation. If you set something up, it must pay off.

  I think it is more helpful for the writer to invert this rule. That is, if you are going to use a rifle later in the novel as a crucial plot device, then you’d better put it up on the wall in Act I.

  This is called planting, and you can do that at any stage of the writing process.

  Maybe as you’re approaching a climax you determine that it would be a nice thing for the Lead to be able to produce a flamethrower out of his wristwatch and burn his way out of the terrible situation. If you’re going to do that, you need to plant that somewhere earlier in the story.

  That was the role of Q in all the James Bond movies. He would show Bond the gadgets for his next mission. Usually the audience would forget some of them until the point where Bond is hanging by his ankles over a pool of piranhas. Then he would produce the gadget that he needed to get out of trouble. The audience accepted that because they would remember the earlier scene with Q.

  Of course, this planting does not have to be ham-fisted. And you can also plant something early with a plan to pay it off later.

  My Kit Shannon novels take place in Los Angeles in the early 1900s. In researching the time, I discovered that jujitsu was all the rage for a while, especially as a way for women to get exercise. That seemed like a neat skill to give my Lead as a way out of some trouble. So I had her sign up for classes. No big scene. But later she used a jujitsu technique on a large boxer who was trying to intimidate her. It would not have worked without the earlier plant.

  STAMPEDING-BUFFALO TECHNIQUE

  You can’t control a buffalo stampede. They take off and go where they darn well please. Your job is to get on your horse and ride fast and furious after them.

  You can, however, influence the general direction of the thundering herd. By riding alongside, whooping and hollering, you can sway the stampede this way or that. You don’t plot their steps or their exact route. You just get them going sort of toward Texas, if that’s your desired end.

  So when you sit down to your daily writing, let your thoughts run. Let them romp. Stay out of their way. Only now and then give a little whoop to get them going in a desired direction. But mostly, watch them go.

  YOUR WRITER’S NOTEBOOK

  A writer’s notebook is a place to keep, in orderly sections, information about your novel in progress. The value of such a journal is that it allows you to “write when you’re not writing.” You can be jotting notes and placing information in it all the way through the finished product.

  How you divide your notebook is up to you. Feel free to fine-tune this tool according to your individual taste. Here are the five major divisions I use:

  [1] Plot ideas. In this section, I keep my notes about plot. Before beginning a novel, I’ll use this section for keeping free-form notes about plot developments, twists and turns, and major scene ideas.

  Ideas come to us at odd times. When they do, write them down in this section, and think about how to use them later on. This is how you can work on your book even when you’re away from the keyboard (or paper).

  [2] Characters. I record here a description of my main characters, with some essential information about each. I want to know what drives them, what they want in the story, what they care most about, what past events have shaped them, and so forth.

  I also start compiling a list of possible names to use for my characters, both major and minor. It is important to have “real sounding” names, and it’s easy to compile a list. Just take any newspaper and read through the articles looking for names. Separate the first names from the last. You’ll soon have more than enough possibilities to choose from, and this will save you time later on.

  When you get stuck in your writing, come back to this section and look over the major character data. Ask yourself, “What do these characters really want, and why can’t they have it?” That will get you going again.

  [3] Research. Authors vary in their approaches to research. Some like to wait until they have a first draft and can see what areas need more study. Others spend massive amounts of time researching before they start to write. (James A. Michener reportedly read an average of two hundred books before starting one of his novels.) Others, like yours truly, do a little of both.

  Whatever method you use, you’ll need a place to keep your research. These days, with Internet sites and e-mail, you can generate a lot of research quickly. Get used to filing it all in your writer’s notebook. One nice benefit of research is that it will suggest story ideas to you. Now your notebook becomes truly interactive as you go to your ideas or plot section and jot down your inspirations.

  [4] Plot summary. The plot summary keeps track of what you have actually written. After you write a chapter, summarize what you’ve done in a line or two. Cut and paste the first paragraph or two underneath that, leave white space, and paste in the last couple of paragraphs. Do this with each chapter you write, and periodically print these pages and put them in your notebook.

  The summary outline helps you see where you’ve been and think about where you’re going with your daily writing. When you seem lost in your story, as will sometimes happen, you can go back and reread the whole thing in summary form. This will often focus your thinking and give you ideas for getting back on track.

  When you’ve finally completed your first draft, the summary outline can be used for a solid overview of your story, and guide you into writing that all-important second draft.

  [5] Questions. A good writer is constantly asking questions about the story. These questions can be about plot (what would be a surprising thing that could happen here?), character (what sort of background does Lyle need to scale a building?), research (what would a USO hostess be wearing in 1943?), or anything else that springs to mind. Write all these down, and keep them in your notebook. As you answer the questions, your story will take on a richer quality. Remember, details make for great writing. Questions help you flesh out details.

  Again, the great benefit of the writer’s notebook is that it allows you to “work” on your book even when you’re not writing. In fact, by looking it over before you go to bed, you can even work on your book while you’re sleeping. And what other job, besides politics, rewards you for that kind of work?

  GENRE PLOT TIPS

  Here are a few tips relating to special genres. Know your chosen genre’s conventions, and always add something fresh:

  Mystery

  While there are a number of great mystery writers who claim not to know who their killer is until they get to the end of the first draft, I suspect there are even more who plot from the scene of the crime and work backwards.

  You may be doing some preliminary work on your plot first, such as setting or character. You might just have a situation in mind that sparks your imagination.

  But at some point, try this: Figure out who your killer is, what his motivation might be, and construct the elaborate murder or crime he commits. Make it vivid and complex and real. See it in your mind. Some writers even construct a small set or diagram in order to visualize the scene.

  Now you’re ready to figure out what clues need to be dropped in your plot and what characters will be introduced as suspects.

  Or you might want to fly by the seat of your pants, believing what Lawrence Block once said, that if he didn’t know who the killer was as he wrote, he was pretty sure the reader would not. (He also started and never finished a good number of novels in his life.)

  Thriller

  The difference between a mystery and a thriller is basically that a mystery is li
ke a maze. The reader is going from clue to clue to try to figure out what happened.

  In a thriller, the feeling is more like a vise closing on the Lead. And the events get tighter and tighter, threatening the Lead in some drastic way. The opposition character is the one who is cranking the vice.

  At some point then, the Lead is going to have to defeat the opponent. Why not begin your plotting with that scene? Create a final climactic battle with the opponent, and make it as stunningly original as you can.

  Then you have something to write toward. You eventually may decide to change the details of the scene when you get there, but at least you’ll have a signpost.

  And don’t forget motivation. Give your opposition character a motive for doing what he is doing, and why he fights that final battle.

  Literary

  With a literary novel, the writer is mostly concerned with mood and texture. Why not think about the final impression you want to make on the reader? Think about resonance. Perhaps a final image or line of dialogue, something that creates a feeling that you’re looking for.

  You might even assign some music to this feeling. Find a song or a piece of music from a film score that creates a mood in you similar to what you’re trying to create in the reader. Play the music in the background as you plot. Or, if you are a NOP, play the music as you write.

  Romance

  Romance has as its objective the pairing of lovers. All the other plotting revolves around that. Romance is as much about what doesn’t happen as what does. Keeping the lovers apart is the great tension and frustration.