Plot & Structure: Techniques and Exercises for Crafting a Plot That Grips Readers from Start to Finish (Write Great Fiction)

by James Scott Bell

If you want to break through with this thing called craft, you’ll need to be your own disciplinarian.

The daily writing of words, once it becomes a habit, will be the most fruitful discipline of your writing life. You’ll be amazed at how productive you’ll become, and how much you’ll learn about the craft.

and practice. After analyzing hundreds of plots, I’ve developed a simple set of foundational principles called the LOCK system. LOCK stands for Lead, Objective, Confrontation, and Knockout.

All plots are character driven.

That’s why it’s critical to develop the sort of imagination that considers several possibilities before deciding which scene to write. You can do this just by pausing, writing a quick list of possibilities, and waiting for something to click. Do this even within the scene you’re writing. Maybe you start out thinking that you’ll have a cop burst into a house and engage a bad guy in a gunfight, ending with the bad guy dead. Stop a moment. What if the cop ends up dead? Or there’s an innocent bystander in the house? Or a dog? Or there’s not really anyone there after all? Think about it. Choose something fresh.