Deconstructing SOLEDAD #2, The Plot Skeleton
SPOILER ALERT: The “Deconstructing SOLEDAD” blog series takes a look at the novel writing process step-by-step. For those who’ve read SOLEDAD, I hope you enjoy this “behind the scenes” peek into the creation process. And if you haven’t read SOLEDAD yet, you are hereby duly warned there are spoilers aplenty in the following posts.
DECONSTRUCTING SOLEDAD #2: The Plot Skeleton (a.k.a. Detailed Outline)
In my last post (you can read it here), I described how I started the novel-writing process for SOLEDAD by planning out a 3-act structure with high-level descriptions of the major plot points. And since I’m a visual person, I used a nice 3-act structure graphic I found that helped the process (see it here).
One thing I like about using a movie-based 3-act structure (as depicted in the last blog’s graphic, again here) is that movies often use storytelling conventions around the length of the acts that viewers have come to implicitly expect from films. This structure (adopted from theatre) is a kind of shorthand between the writer and the audience, and it implies a certain pacing to the story. Whether we explicitly realize it or not, as moviegoers we all understand that 20 minutes into the movie, we’ll have a really good idea of the trajectory the plot will take.
Take, for instance, the “crossing the threshold” moment a character goes through, which signals the end of Act 1. At this point in the story, the character commits to a goal, leaving his or her “normal world” behind and passing beyond some point of no return. In Star Wars, it’s when Luke decides to leave Tatooine with Obi Wan. In Harry Potter, it’s when Harry leaves his Uncle and Aunt’s house for Hogwarts. Normally, in a movie the end of Act 1 comes no later than 20-30 minutes into the film, or roughly 25% of the way into the story.
The reason I mention all this is because in movies, the pacing we expect in a story translates well to a novel, especially a novel on the shorter side (like SOLEDAD, a work of around 65 thousand words in length). And for SOLEDAD, using this pacing meant that Act 1 would be the first 25% of the novel, Act 2 would be the middle 50% (where the bulk of the story is told), and Act 3 would be the final 25% of the story.
Since I already know my high-level 3-act structure, the next step is putting some meat on my outline bones, or filling up my 3 acts with scenes and chapters. To keep the reader engaged and turning pages, these scenes and chapters need to do several things simultaneously:
They must create an engaging world for the reader
They must build the story—in a cause-and-effect way—through the plot points I’ve already laid out in my high-level outline. My editor likes to call these the “tent poles” of the story. I like that analogy.
