I&E follow-along: The muse is in the building

Since I’ve been a bit stalled in my plot recently, I decided to try a method I’ve used in the past to batter my way through a sluggish spell: buy a new how-to-write book. I know, I know; I’ve done courses and read literally dozens of books on the subject, but sometimes what you need is a fresh perspective on a familiar topic.

Thanks to the Kindle, you can get some excellent how-to-write books very cheaply (I read them using the Kindle app on my iPad). This time around I bought Writing a Killer Thriller by Jodie Renner, and Rock Your Plot by Cathy Yardley. I chose the former because I realised that the book I’m working on would work well with a thriller structure (my agent wants something plot-driven!) and the latter because, again, I needed help with plotting. Neither contained anything radically new (the thriller one is basically a compilation of advice from various books, many of which I’ve already read), but evidently something in them woke my Muse…

I’m now working through the exercises in Rock Your Plot, which aren’t that different from Holly’s “critical modules” in HtTS – it’s all about identifying your main characters’ goals and motivations and what’s stopping them from achieving them. Maybe it was just a different phrasing of the questions that struck a chord, but I soon found myself with the main plot points for a standard 3-act structure.

In doing that, I discovered that I didn’t really like the villain’s plan, so I came up with something nastier. After that everything started sliding into place—or rather popping into my head at inopportune moments, like when I was supposed to be getting ready for work on Monday morning!

I need to poke said ideas a bit more to be certain they’re truly interesting and not just clichés rendered down from the thousands of movies and TV shows I’ve seen, but I’m starting to feel like I have a handle on this plot at last. Oh, and I have a working title now too: Serpent’s Tooth. It seems I can’t get away from Shakespeare, no matter how hard I try!