Plot, Character, or Situation: Your Story’s Entry Point Determines Next Steps

Today’s post is by editor and book coach Heather Garbo.

How do you start a story? I don’t mean your first sentence, but rather how does the story begin to take shape in your mind? What is your story entry point?

I find writers approach stories from one of three entry points: plot, character, or situation.

A writer may be very clear about what they want to happen in the premise (plot entry point) or they may clearly understand who their protagonist is (character entry point) or they may want to explore a particular event, place or circumstances (situation entry point).

Your entry point is usually where you have the most clarity on your story. But so many writers falter with next steps, and that makes for a more painful revision process later. However, if you identify your story entry point, you can avoid some of the most common manuscript missteps.

Entry point #1: Plot

If you approach your story with a plot focus you might know the full sweep of the story or at least the general shape. You probably know the inciting incident that kicks off the story and where you want the story to end and perhaps some of the plot highlights. You might even have ideas about the main character, but if asked about your story at this point, you probably talk about the plot.

It might look something like this:

Samantha unexpectedly becomes a widow in her 60s and, with no close family, decides to open her house to rent rooms to university students. She quickly becomes entangled in their lives. When one of the young women doesn’t return home as expected and the police aren’t interested in helping, she and the others band together to try to find her.

You can see how, although the writer has some idea about who the main character is, they haven’t delved much into character development. Their focus is on what happens in the story. And there’s nothing wrong with that as long as they don’t overlook character development before they begin writing. If they do, we might see manuscript problems such as:

No clarity on the main character’s arc of transformation, which can lead to an unsatisfying endingMissing the main character’s emotional context and interiority on the page, which can lead to the reader not fully understanding what’s unfolding or not connecting with the main character, thereby not feeling engaged in the story.

Next steps: Stories that are heavy on plot can overlook the emotional journey of their protagonist. We get to the end of those stories and, while they may have been entertaining, we struggle to be emotionally invested in the characters. But if you delve into who your character is before you begin writing, you can get the internal plot—the protagonist’s transformational arc—on the page as well.

Here’s how you do that:

Before you begin writing, get to know your protagonist to understand them and the choices they make. Explore these questions:What is your protagonist’s current world view? Do they have a misguided belief? Where in their backstory did this originate? How does it change by the end of the story?What is their external want, the thing that is driving them forward in their narrative?What is their internal need, that thing they need to learn to achieve their transformative arc?What are the external and internal conflicts?What does the protagonist stand to lose (i.e., stakes)?Let these answers guide you to discovering the emotional context of your key plot points:How is the protagonist making sense of the unfolding events?What do these events mean to them?

As you draft your scenes, be sure you use these answers to get your protagonist’s emotional interiority onto the page so the reader understands what the unfolding plot events mean to them.

Entry point #2: Character

Sometimes it’s not a plot, but a character who figuratively taps us on the shoulder. If a main character is clearly taking shape in your mind but you’re not yet sure what to do with them, then you’re approaching your story from a character entry point.

This might look like:

“I want to write about a woman who is truly exploring her sexuality for the first time at 55.”“I want to write about a 30-year-old father who doesn’t meet his own dad until the first year of his daughter’s life.”“I want to write about a woman who’s always been timid but who is pushed to find her own strength in her 40s when a loved one is in jeopardy.”

In each of these entry points the writer is beginning to consider who the main character is and where they come from (i.e., backstory). Maybe they have even explored a misguided belief or know what their transformational arc should be. But they aren’t yet sure what happens in the story to push that character through their transformation.

In story, the plot points are how we test our main character. If you have a character entry point, you probably have not yet determined how you will put your main character through the paces. Again, this is not a problem but rather a clue about what to work on next—plot development!

If you jump into writing without giving plot much consideration, we tend to see manuscript problems like these:

Starting the story too early or too lateWeak narrative drive where things just happen in the plot but the events don’t feel very connected

Next steps: With a character entry point, you need to have total clarity on who that character is so you can craft the exact set of events that will push them out of their status quo life.

In her book The Making of a Story, Stanford University creative writing professor and author Alice LaPlante advises writers to consider: “What can I do to my character to unsettle or move or stress or stretch him or her in some way?” If you know your character well, then you can create the circumstances that will most effectively push that character out of their comfort zone and into the new adventure that will force them to grow.

Questions to explore include:

What is your main character most afraid of? How can you force them to stand in that fear? What is their worldview and misguided belief?What would cause a character like this to change?Entry point #3: Situation

This often begins with a writer deciding they would like to write about a particular event, place, or even circumstances such as a subculture. At first glance this might seem like a plot entry point, but it’s not. You’re more likely to begin by thinking about a large-scale event or set of circumstances rather than the smaller story that will unfold within it. It’s a macro approach rather than the micro approach. We often see this with historical fiction or if a writer wants to explore a social issue.

It might look something like:

“I want to want to write about the Soviet ballet during the Cold War.”“I want to write about Oxford University the first year women were admitted.”“I want to write about the Kingdom of Happy Land, the communal kingdom set up by formerly enslaved people in North Carolina.”

(Though I have no idea the starting points for these authors, these examples are all inspired by recent books: Maya and Natasha by Elyse Durham, The Eights by Joanna Miller, and Happy Land by Dolen Perkins-Valdez.)

And, yes, I will once again say: this is not a problem. But if you don’t take the right next steps, you’ll likely run into tricky revision problems such as:

Not making the story human scale. An entry point with such a big picture view can be trickier to scale down to create a story that is intriguing and engaging. In other words, how can you make this bigger situation meaningful for this particular character?Any of the above problems listed under Plot Entry Point or Character Entry Point

Next steps: With a situation entry point, you need to find the micro in the macro. What is the smaller, personal story here? I recommend beginning with your main character.

First explore the questions:

Which types of characters might we find at the heart of this particular event or situation?Who would most need to change in this situation or setting?Who is a character I am most drawn to? (Because you must first be interested if you hope to intrigue a reader!)

As with Plot Entry Point, next consider these questions to further your character development:

What is your protagonist’s current world view?Do they have a misguided belief? Where in their backstory did this originate? How does it change by the end of the story?What is their external want, the thing that is driving them forward in their narrative?What is their internal need, that thing they need to learn to achieve their transformative arc?What are the external and internal conflicts?What does the protagonist stand to lose (i.e., stakes)?

As with Character Entry Point, explore the series of events that might shape that character:

What is your main character most afraid of?How can you force them to stand in that fear?What is their worldview and misguided belief?What would cause a character like this to change?

Finally let all of these answers guide you to discovering the emotional context of your key plot points:

How is the protagonist making sense of the unfolding events?What do these events mean to them?

As a book coach, I believe all writers benefit from foundational story planning. But it doesn’t have to be extensive and it doesn’t mean outlining every plot point. Even if you identify as a pantser and eschew story plotting, you can gain clarity by using your story entry point to consider what you might be overlooking before you get too far into your writing. And, if you’ve already begun writing, it can still be helpful to pause and consider where you’ve started, how that shows up in your story, and what you might be missing. A little extra consideration on the front end can save you from a nightmare revision process later.

Do you use one of these story entry points or a different starting point? My observations are based on my experiences working with writers, and I would certainly love to hear about other approaches to story and how that’s worked for you!