Depth: Part 3 – Plot

As a last part to my blog trilogy on depth, I'm going to cover plot. So what is depth in plot? In my opinion, depth in plot means pushing the envelope with the events and situations in your work. I'm not talking about Sarah who loves John who loves Nicole who is pregnant with Nate's baby and Nate is married to Sarah…you know the drill as I used something similar in part one. Confusion does not equal depth nor does it equal tension.

Take your typical "good girl versus bad boy" type of book. You know the ones I mean; the scandalous rake and the innocent, the heiress and the guy from the wrong side of the tracks, or the rich CEO and the struggling mom. Why do they work? Because the hero and heroine are like two magnets pushing against each other. That adds a layer to the book and depending on the situations you create within your book, the reader can get pulled in.

Now what if your innocent was not so innocent or your heiress a fraud? Or maybe your struggling mother has put herself in a compromising position.  Now we have another layer and this is where you begin to add to your depth.

I'll use the fraud heiress example. What if the heiress is actually one of two heiresses, a missing twin for instance? And what if she wasn't so sweet or put together because living in near poverty is never easy. Wouldn't it be interesting if the guy from the wrong side of the tracks had to redeem her? By the end of the story, both the hero and heroine would have done a complete turnaround. You've created an arc of growth for them and a situation which would naturally contain tension.

The truth is that we writers will often have all the elements to create depth in our characters, setting and plot but we don't always know how to arrange it or make it work to the best interest of the work. Sometimes that requires stepping back or having a critique partner read it. And many times it is simply practice makes perfect.

What about you all? What works to create depth in your works?

Filed under: Toni Kelly, Writing Topics