Plot
by Paul Nattress
I get plenty of ideas for plots - or at least I think I do. When I try to write a story around them they always seem strained and forced. I’ve found out that most of the ideas I have for plots are actually ideas for sub plots or settings into which the story falls.
So what makes a good plot? Do you even need one? Well, of course you need a storyline, but I’ve found that with my writing, emotions, feelings and character’s personal reactions are what the main thread of the story is about. If I have a plot, all of these are set against the background of the idea which I first thought would be my plot. The story isn’t about what happens in the tale, but what the characters feel as it is happening - and whatever “it” may be, I believe it only serves as an easel on which to paint your story. As an example, in one of my stories - Hollow, I thought that the idea of an elevator going down into the Hollow Earth and someone seeing what was happening sown there was enough for a story, but the end product was about how the character could only think of himself and his own misery when others were suffering more than him. It is his damnation at the end which is the moral of the story - this is no sightseeing tour or the exploration of a theory - there is a story here but the plot only serves as a way of delivering that story.
Whatever the plot is, the story stays the same. This guy could have been on a bus one day and maybe tried to imagine what it would be like to be homeless. He would have thought about how he would suffer but when he gets off the bus and sees a homeless person what does he do? He puts his hands in his pockets, not to take out money to help a person in need, but to keep them warm (there’s an idea for a story - go write it and send it in to us). I could have wrote this but the idea I had originally involved a trip to the Hollow Earth and I wanted it to be a bit of a horror/fantasy story. Now, imagine if I had written the above as the story, would you have believed that an article I read about the Hollow Earth had given me the idea to write it? No, I wouldn’t have either, but that’s how I get my stories. I get an idea for a plot, build the characters and their feelings around it then transport that from the original plot and there - a story with interest.
I know a lot of Science-fiction writers like to speculate about “what-ifs” in their writing but they always have that human touch present - and that is what drives the story. I just happen to like to write my stories in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre. I feel that this helps me break free of what is happening in my life and helps to transport me completely into the world of my characters. I can get into their feelings much easier if they don’t have the same things going on around them as I do. So, stuck for a plot? Let your imagination run wild, try something fantastic, steal other people’s ideas but let the plot shape your characters so that they don’t need it any more. If they can stand on their own two feet then your plot can be whatever you can think of.
© 1999 Paul Nattress
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