Ay, Now the Plot Thickens

When George Villiers, the 2nd Duke of Buckingham wrote those words for his play “The Rehearsal” in 1663, I believe he had today’s blog post in mind. For, ay, I intend to discuss how to plot a story.

First, what is a plot? It is simply a series of connected fictional events. Here are two rules about these events:

1. In a non-humorous story, the connections between events should be logical, with a minimum of lucky coincidences; the events should be related by cause and effect.

2. To make your stor...