On Writing: Plot point generation #3
[check out this post on my personal page, where it looks better]
You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.
A story is made out of meaningful stuff that happens. Each unit of meaningful stuff that happens is often referred to as a plot point. Here’s how to come up with them, before you consider fitting them into a structure.
-Is there a test that the protagonist could go through and that he doesn’t believe he can pass? What events would it suggest?
-What does the protagonist have to confront to solve the problem set up for him?
-What events could come up from bringing unresolved issues to the surface?
-How could you push your characters to the limit?
-Find that thing that your character would rather die than do, and make them do it.
-Characters must confront the very thing they would least like to, and confronting this thing is a kind of hell. More precisely, it is their own personal hell. But through this confrontation, they are transformed.
-How can you make the conflicts varied and surprising?
-Imagine situations in which internal conflict will attack severely a character.
-Disturbances don’t have to happen just at the beginning. You can sprinkle them throughout. When in doubt about what to write next, make more trouble.
-Come up with a long list of obstacles and opposition characters that can be thrown in the lead’s way. Go crazy. When you’ve got fifteen or twenty of these, choose the best ones and list them in order from bad to worse to worst.
-Does the conflict force the protagonist to take action, whether it’s to rationalize it away or actually change? Imagine what would you want to avoid if you were your protagonist, and then make her face it.
-A story’s job is to put the protagonist through tests that, even in her wildest dreams, she doesn’t think she can pass.
-Do expose your character’s flaws, demons, and insecurities. Stories are about people who are uncomfortable, and as we know, nothing makes us more uncomfortable than change. A story is often about watching someone’s house fall around their ears, beam by beam. Besides the fact that perfection is not actually possible, things that are not falling apart are dull. It’s your job to dismantle all the places where your protagonist seeks sanctuary and to actively force him out into the cold. But a hero only becomes a hero by doing something heroic, rising to the occasion, against all odds, and confronting one’s own inner demons in the process. It’s up to you to keep your protagonist on track by making sure each external twist brings him face to face with something about himself that he’d probably rather not see.
-Don’t forget there’s no such thing as a free lunch. This is another way of saying everything must be earned, which means that nothing can come to your protagonist easily, after all, the reader’s goal is to experience how he reacts when things go wrong. Stories can help us expand the range of options in life by testing, in small increments, how closely one can approach the brink of disaster without falling over it. This means the protagonist has to work for everything he gets, often in ways he didn’t anticipate, much harder than anything he would have signed on for. The only time things come easily is when they are the opposite of what is actually best for him.
-For maximum conflict, always put your hero in the last place he wants to be.
-For some great conflict, place your characters in an environment that is their opposite.
-The scene where a character must ask for help from someone he screwed over earlier always works.
-You gotta throw your characters in the shit. You gotta kick them. You gotta demoralize them.
-Take a character who hates something more than anything, then put him in a situation where he must pretend to love it.
-Take a character who desperately wants to get somewhere, then have him held up by someone who wants to talk.
-Deliberately write your characters into situations that are impossible to get out of, then figure a way to get them out of them.
-Place your hero in plenty of “character emergencies.” A “character emergency” is when your character is placed in a situation where he has no choice but to act.
-What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
-Think of ways to create lots of internal conflict (hard choices).
-Who can betray the protagonist?
-Make your characters clash. Think of ways of doing so.
-How would the other character(s) and the world react to what the protagonist (or other characters) are doing?
-How could you pull the rug out from under your protagonist when he’s at his most vulnerable?
-How do you make it harder for your protagonist? See what bad thing could happen, and let it happen. Try to make it worse than he imagined it could possibly be, worse than you imagined it could be at first blush.
-Look for conflict that flows from the plot, and that comes down to character, to character motivations, goals and reactions.
You can check out all my posts on writing through this link.
A story is made out of meaningful stuff that happens. Each unit of meaningful stuff that happens is often referred to as a plot point. Here’s how to come up with them, before you consider fitting them into a structure.
-Is there a test that the protagonist could go through and that he doesn’t believe he can pass? What events would it suggest?
-What does the protagonist have to confront to solve the problem set up for him?
-What events could come up from bringing unresolved issues to the surface?
-How could you push your characters to the limit?
-Find that thing that your character would rather die than do, and make them do it.
-Characters must confront the very thing they would least like to, and confronting this thing is a kind of hell. More precisely, it is their own personal hell. But through this confrontation, they are transformed.
-How can you make the conflicts varied and surprising?
-Imagine situations in which internal conflict will attack severely a character.
-Disturbances don’t have to happen just at the beginning. You can sprinkle them throughout. When in doubt about what to write next, make more trouble.
-Come up with a long list of obstacles and opposition characters that can be thrown in the lead’s way. Go crazy. When you’ve got fifteen or twenty of these, choose the best ones and list them in order from bad to worse to worst.
-Does the conflict force the protagonist to take action, whether it’s to rationalize it away or actually change? Imagine what would you want to avoid if you were your protagonist, and then make her face it.
-A story’s job is to put the protagonist through tests that, even in her wildest dreams, she doesn’t think she can pass.
-Do expose your character’s flaws, demons, and insecurities. Stories are about people who are uncomfortable, and as we know, nothing makes us more uncomfortable than change. A story is often about watching someone’s house fall around their ears, beam by beam. Besides the fact that perfection is not actually possible, things that are not falling apart are dull. It’s your job to dismantle all the places where your protagonist seeks sanctuary and to actively force him out into the cold. But a hero only becomes a hero by doing something heroic, rising to the occasion, against all odds, and confronting one’s own inner demons in the process. It’s up to you to keep your protagonist on track by making sure each external twist brings him face to face with something about himself that he’d probably rather not see.
-Don’t forget there’s no such thing as a free lunch. This is another way of saying everything must be earned, which means that nothing can come to your protagonist easily, after all, the reader’s goal is to experience how he reacts when things go wrong. Stories can help us expand the range of options in life by testing, in small increments, how closely one can approach the brink of disaster without falling over it. This means the protagonist has to work for everything he gets, often in ways he didn’t anticipate, much harder than anything he would have signed on for. The only time things come easily is when they are the opposite of what is actually best for him.
-For maximum conflict, always put your hero in the last place he wants to be.
-For some great conflict, place your characters in an environment that is their opposite.
-The scene where a character must ask for help from someone he screwed over earlier always works.
-You gotta throw your characters in the shit. You gotta kick them. You gotta demoralize them.
-Take a character who hates something more than anything, then put him in a situation where he must pretend to love it.
-Take a character who desperately wants to get somewhere, then have him held up by someone who wants to talk.
-Deliberately write your characters into situations that are impossible to get out of, then figure a way to get them out of them.
-Place your hero in plenty of “character emergencies.” A “character emergency” is when your character is placed in a situation where he has no choice but to act.
-What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
-Think of ways to create lots of internal conflict (hard choices).
-Who can betray the protagonist?
-Make your characters clash. Think of ways of doing so.
-How would the other character(s) and the world react to what the protagonist (or other characters) are doing?
-How could you pull the rug out from under your protagonist when he’s at his most vulnerable?
-How do you make it harder for your protagonist? See what bad thing could happen, and let it happen. Try to make it worse than he imagined it could possibly be, worse than you imagined it could be at first blush.
-Look for conflict that flows from the plot, and that comes down to character, to character motivations, goals and reactions.
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