Plots and Plotting

by Diana Kimpton

  Keep each flashback as short as possible so readers don’t lose contact with the main story.

  Make the change to and from the flashback crystal clear. Sometimes it helps to use italics or indenting to make it obvious that this section is different from the main text.

  If you are sure you need a very long flashback, consider putting it in a separate section or chapter. You can put the date and place at the beginning of this to make the jump clearer and then put it again when you go back to normal time.

  Consider breaking a long flashback into two or more shorter ones with a return to normal time in between. The break doesn’t have to be very long – a few lines of dialogue can sometimes be enough to remind your reader what’s flashback and what isn’t.

  Time pressure

  If your characters have all the time in the world to solve their main problem, there is no need for them to rush and the odd setback isn’t a disaster. But if you think of some reason why they have to find the solution in a short period of time, you make their task much harder and the closer they get to the deadline, the more tense the situation will become. That’s why there is always a timer ticking away the seconds while James Bond struggles to diffuse a bomb or Doctor Who tries to stop a spaceship autodestructing.

  Time pressure doesn’t just work in life-and-death situations. It is just as effective when a girl has two days to escape an arranged marriage, a detective has 24 hours to prove his innocence before he is suspended or the prince has three days to complete the task that will win him the hand of the princess he loves. But there needs to be something real at stake. The sort of artificial deadlines that crop up in reality TV shows don’t work well in stories.

  It’s nearly always possible to add some time pressure to your plot if you think hard enough, and it can be a perfect way to build in some extra tension. For maximum effect, make life so difficult for your main characters that they run right up to the deadline and, if the tension starts to drop, make something happen to bring that deadline forward. Of course, you’ll need to occasionally remind your readers of how much time is left (the literary equivalent of the ticking clock), but you can sort that out at the writing stage.

  Future Proof offers plenty of possibilities for adding some time pressure. I could make Jane discover that the police are coming in ten minutes to arrest her for hiding the notebook, so she has to escape before they arrive. Or I could give Jane and Seb just three days to prevent a rebel attack that they know is doomed to fail. Or, if I make the aliens plan to destroy the human race in a week’s time, our heroes would only have seven days to save mankind.

  It’s fine to use time pressure in more than one way in the same book provided you are careful to make the events they apply to sufficiently different from each other. So there’s no reason why I can’t use all of these ideas if I want to (although the last one will have to wait for the final book if I decide to write a trilogy).

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  When the plot goes wrong

  It’s very difficult to get a story right first time. So the chances are very high that you’ll hit a problem or get stuck at some point during the creation of your story. I know from experience that it’s natural to feel downhearted when this happens, but try to resist the temptation to give up. Setbacks are a natural part of the writing process, so it’s best to treat them as a challenge rather than a disaster. And sorting them out often makes your story better and more original than it was before.

  The troubleshooting sections that follow this one are designed to help you work out what’s wrong and decide how you are going to fix it. You’ll probably also find it helpful to look back to relevant parts of the rest of this book. As with all aspects of plotting, don’t assume that the first solution that comes into your head is the one you should use. Try to think of several different ways of dealing with the issue. Then look at their implications for the whole story before you decide which is going to work best.

  Dealing with feedback

  Sometimes you’ll pick up a problem yourself during the initial plotting process or while you are doing the actual writing. However, you might not realize the story isn’t working out as well as you’d hoped until you’ve finished the first draft and your test/beta readers or your editor point out some problems. (A fresh eye always picks up things you’ve missed. That’s why beta readers and editors are so useful.)

  It’s tempting to argue with people who tell you the beginning is slow, they got bored in the middle or they got the characters muddled up. But there’s no point. You can’t change the way they feel, and there was no point in asking their opinion in the first place unless you are willing to listen to what they say. However, that doesn’t mean you have to change absolutely everything they mention, and it definitely doesn’t mean that you have to follow any suggestions they make to sort things out. Although any reader can spot a problem, it takes a writer to work out what’s caused it and how best to sort it out. (The same is true of editors – editing and writing are different skills.)

  Once you have all the feedback on your story, read your work through carefully with those comments in mind. Highlight everything you feel needs to be sorted out and do some troubleshooting to work out how you’re going to do it. Then start rewriting. That’s a very important stage in the creative process because it’s the rewriting that makes a good book great.

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  Troubleshooting the beginning

  When anyone starts to read your book, they will have lots of questions in their head. What’s the story about? Where is it happening? When is it happening? Is it fantasy or real life? If it’s fantasy, what kind of world is it? Who is the main character? What kind of person are they? What’s their problem?

  You don’t need to answer all those questions immediately, but you do need to give them enough information to avoid confusion. And you need to do it in a way that holds their attention and draws them into the story. Here are some of the most common problems that arise and some suggestions on how to solve them.

  The story takes too long to get going

  Start later.

  Check that all the early steps of your story are necessary. Leaving out the ones that aren’t needed will speed up your story.

  Add a problem to an existing story strand or introduce a different strand to provide some early interest. You may not need to invent this strand from scratch – it can be one from later in the story that you decide to introduce earlier than you originally planned. Sometimes just a hint is enough to tweak the reader’s curiosity.

  Dramatize a problem or event that’s already there. At the beginning of a story, there’s a big temptation to tell rather than show because you are concentrating on setting up the situation. But showing is what grabs the reader’s attention and makes the characters come alive.

  Leave out any background information that isn’t strictly necessary at the moment. You can put it in later.

  The opening scene works well, but then the story slows right down

  The most common reason for this is when you follow an exciting opening incident with a huge chunk of background information (sometimes called an infodump).

  Leave out any background information about the situation, setting or characters that isn’t essential at this point in the story. You can add it later, if it’s really needed.

  Tell the readers just enough to awaken their curiosity so they want to go on reading to find out more.

  Break the background information into small bits and drip-feed it to readers by giving it to them a little at a time while you continue to tell the story.

  Make the scene after the opening incident more interesting by giving a character a problem or dilemma, even if it’s quite a small one.

  Readers say they are confused by all the characters

  Introduce characters one at a time. Even if the story is about a group, you can concentrate on just one at first, then bring in the second, etc.

  Avoid naming any minor characters who crop up in the opening pages. Read
ers tend to assume that any character with a name needs to be remembered.

  Think whether you need so many characters. Combining two of them into one will cut the numbers, and it may produce a more rounded, interesting personality who adds extra potential to your story.

  Check the names of your characters and change any that are too similar to each other.

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  Troubleshooting the middle

  The middle is the place you are most likely to run into problems. Here are some of the most common.

  Readers lose interest

  Check that you are using the main events in your story as effectively as possible and making the most of their dramatic potential. These are the sections where you must show rather than tell.

  Add complications. Give your characters extra dilemmas and difficulties to overcome in existing story strands.

  Add new story strands to avoid the story being too linear.

  Take out any irrelevant padding as that’s a sure cause of boredom.

  Increase what’s at stake to make the story more compelling.

  Look at your main characters to see if you can spot ways to make your readers care more about them.

  The story is repetitive

  This can easily happen as your main characters keep trying unsuccessfully to solve their problem. It’s also a common issue with quests and journeys which automatically have the “go somewhere – something happens – go somewhere else” format. To stop the story being repetitive, try some of these ideas.

  Consider cutting out some of the repetitive events. Remember the rule of three: try once and fail, try twice and fail, then succeed has a good rhythm. Even three fails followed by success works quite well. But more fails than that become repetitive unless you make them very different from each other.

  Vary the problems your characters face so they are not too similar or predictable.

  Vary the way your characters solve the problems to stop your story becoming a string of fights, arguments or running away.

  Use time jumps to vary the way you tell the story. You don’t need a blow-by-blow account of every step of the journey so build up the most important steps and jump over the trivial bits (like washing, dressing and breakfasting) that tend to be very repetitive.

  Introduce another story strand to force your characters off course for a while. If you want, you can use the resulting delay to the main plotline to add some time pressure to keep the tension rising.

  The story is too predictable

  Brainstorm fresh ideas, and opt for events that are less obvious.

  Introduce a fresh problem or character to move the story in a different direction.

  Reveal something unexpected about a character. Make a good one turn out to be bad or vice versa.

  Kill or injure someone. The more important they are to the plot, the more impact this will have. But beware of killing characters in children’s books. It can have much more impact than you expected and really upset young readers and viewers.

  Introduce a physical problem to turn the story in an unexpected direction. An earthquake, storm, shipwreck, flood, car crash or train wreck are just a few of the possibilities. A bit of brainstorming will produce an even longer list.

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  Troubleshooting the end

  It's easy to rush the end because you're excited about finishing your book. But it's important to take your time and get it right.

  The end is too predictable

  Do some brainstorming to come up with a different ending

  Complicate the existing ending by putting unexpected (but believable) problems in your characters’ way.

  Make sure you have a black moment before the final success – a point where all seems lost. This could be your current ending – the one everyone is expecting – if you make it go horribly wrong.

  Readers don’t find the end believable

  This most often happens when the final solution to your characters’ problem rests on them having a skill your readers didn’t know about or, in detective stories, a clue they didn’t know about until the last page. It also happens when you make someone act completely out of character just to make the ending happen.

  Brainstorm alternative endings to see if you can think of a better one.

  Go back through the plot and work in steps that show that your character has the required skill or a believable reason for behaving in the way they do at the end.

  Make sure all necessary clues are in the story. If they are and your readers still don’t find the end believable, you may need to emphasize the clues a little more.

  Readers believe the ending but don’t find it satisfying

  The most common reason for this is that your main characters didn’t solve the problem themselves.

  Change the end to one where the characters solve their own problem.

  If you need the police, cavalry or anyone else to come to the rescue, make sure they are there because your characters called them. Ideally make them come a little too late – just as your characters have won the fight, found the treasure or whatever.

  Make sure that the ending meets the expectations of your readers. They are unlikely to be pleased if the serial killer escapes or the romantic couple decide to split up forever. Even sad endings should offer some hope.

  If you are writing a series, make sure the ending provides a satisfying conclusion to some of the storylines, even though you leave some unresolved for later books.

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  Troubleshooting the length

  Every story has its own length. Don’t automatically assume you’ve done something wrong because yours has turned out shorter or longer than you expected. But if you want to change the length, try these ideas.

  It’s too short

  Check that you have dramatized the most important steps in the story. Telling is nearly always shorter than showing.

  Add a fresh problem, story strand or character (or maybe all three).

  DON’T pad out the story with irrelevant detail. That will not make your readers happy.

  It’s too long

  Take out irrelevant detail and description, including surplus adjectives and adverbs.

  Tell rather than show if the information is not important.

  Tighten dialogue, removing irrelevant chit-chat.

  Take out any steps or scenes that don’t build character or move the story forward.

  Remove a minor story strand.

  Remove a minor character.

  Combine two characters into one.

  Combine two steps or scenes into one.

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  Choosing the title

  I’ve left this section until last because that’s where it comes in the plotting and writing process. While you are creating your book or novel, you can use any working title you like, however simple. But once you’ve finished, you’ll need to decide on the real title before your book is published.

  That decision is extremely important. The title is the first thing your potential readers will see, and how they react to it will help them decide whether to look at your book or not. So put as much thought into the title as you have done to every other aspect of your book. Have a brainstorming session and write a list of the ideas you like best.

  Now search these on Amazon and Google to see if any of them have already been used. Although there is no copyright in titles, using one that’s been used before may cause confusion and, if the other book is successful, it will stop your book showing up well on searches.

  If you find other titles that are similar to your ideas, check to see if the books they belong to are similar to yours. Some title styles suggest particular genres and, if that genre doesn’t fit your book, readers may be confused. This happened to me with There Must Be Horses which had Sasha’s Story as its working title. Searching on Amazon showed that this type of title was particularly used for what the publishing industry calls misery memoirs: accounts of someone’s miserable and often traumatic life. My book didn’
t fit that genre so I chose a new title, and this time I deliberately included the word horse to help attract horse lovers.

  Once you have a shortlist of titles you think will work, try them out on as many potential readers as you can. Their reactions will help you make your final choice, and it may prevent you making a bad decision.

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  A final update on Future Proof

  We've nearly reached the end of this book and, as you’ve probably noticed, I haven’t finished plotting Future Proof. That doesn't surprise me, because I only started creating the story to provide a way to show the plotting process in action and I never intended to actually write the novel. However, as so often happens during the plotting process, the characters and their stories have started to grow in my head and trigger questions.