Bardothren
Muddling along somehow
- 8,645
- Posts
- 9
- Years
- Age 29
- In my room
- Seen Jan 3, 2020
Hello everyone. I almost didn't return to the blog - I have a terrible time committing to certain scheduled events, but I'm back. I've decided to add a brief how-my-life-is-going section before each of these blog posts. So, my life is great right now, I just got some final grades back, including a B for Adv. Org. Chem and an A for P Chem Lab, an A! Woohoo! I'm still excited about that (but more about the B, honestly, because I was afraid I might fail that class). Christmas was uneventful; I found myself not, well being super excited about Christmas. I still enjoy it, I guess, but the enthusiasm I had six years ago has pretty much vanished when I went to college, mainly because I stopped being interested in paying for videogames and started funneling all my investments into ramen, tuition, and rent. As for my writing, I'm making steady progress on Through the Darkness. Unfortunately, I probably won't finish before my break's over, and I'll have boatloads of writing to do for my classes.
Okay, got that out of my system. On to this week's advice.
Okay, maybe I went just a tiny bit Star Wars crazy last time. I was fairly hyped for the new movie, and I was a touch disappointed by how few risks it took and how rushed and ham-handed the character development was. But that's besides the point. Today, I'm going to talk about what I believe I do best: plot.
In some respects, I reverse engineer my plots. Each of my stories starts with an emotionally impactful moment, whether it's someone's death or a climatic battle, or anything to that effect. These moments form the climax of the plot, and from there, I work backwards, developing events that lead up to the moment, painting the characters involved, providing a setting, that sort of stuff.
So, presuming your mind works anything like mine (and if it does, I recommend you consult your local psychiatrist), you might find yourself wondering how to make the plot flow organically to the climax you have selected. I find that those answers often come as you're writing; the most important point of your plot is the beginning. Start off with a character and a motivation, and have them do something that puts them on the path of their destiny. Let's try Lord of the Rings as an example, since everything about that book makes an excellent example. The start: Frodo leaves home because a wizard gives him a ring and tells him to run. At this point, no one but Tolkien could imagine the climax in Mordor, and yet, this initial scene gets that ball rolling. From that start, there are a million and one ways to proceed - maybe he takes a boat down the river; maybe he ignores the quest and returns to the shire, only for it to be destroyed by orcs which forces him to begin his journey again; maybe he rides the eagles all the way to Mordor.
The point is, as long as you use character motivation to drive the plot, you're going to have a logical story. Make sure your characters, not you, make the story happen. Conflict, at its roots, is a conflict of interest - Sauron want to cover the world in darkness, and the fairer races prefer the light. The best way to make conflict is to make sure some people don't get along. There are many ways to generate conflict, from clashing nationalities or religions, to financial interests, political issues, Black Friday sales, anything people could possibly desire.
There's other forms of conflict as well, such as man vs nature. Here, nature has no motivation. Instead, you have to focus on how your character confronts this challenge nature presents them, and how they handle defeat or triumph. A good Tolkien example would be the fatigue and heat exhaustion the hobbits face on Mt. Doom. Just remember that coincidences that get characters into trouble is great, but coincidences that get them out is cheating. I think I said that last time, but it's one of my favorite pieces of advice. Plans always go awry (as I've experienced too many times for my taste), and a great way to see your character is in how they react to their plans falling apart. Do they accept it calmly and move on, or dwell over the failure, get angry or depressed, perhaps take delight in the unexpected surprise?
I suppose I'll break down my own story as well and see how well I do. If you haven't read Through the Aura, spoiler alert. I also found after finishing this thing that I get way too involved with the plot analysis, which was inevitable, so I'll go ahead and wrap it in spoiler tags so you don't have to read through it if you don't want to. I mean Jesus, if you're going to read that much, you might as well read the whole story.
As far as summary goes, I don't think this one needs it much, since I stayed on track with this one for the most part, but I'll do it anyways. The key to plot is making sure every step of the way has a logical reason behind it. Coincidences are best used for making plans unravel or to give the plot a jump-start, not to drive important plot points later in the story. People can suspend their disbelief if a huge coincidence happens at the beginning of the story, but if it's toward the end, the reader will feel disoriented by the jump in logic.
So, that's that. I'll probably post again next Saturday or so. I noticed some people reading this, so I hoped you found it enlightening or enjoyable. If you feel like leaving advice or comments, through VM, PM, or whatever M you prefer, I'd be more than happy to hear them.
Okay, got that out of my system. On to this week's advice.
Plot
Okay, maybe I went just a tiny bit Star Wars crazy last time. I was fairly hyped for the new movie, and I was a touch disappointed by how few risks it took and how rushed and ham-handed the character development was. But that's besides the point. Today, I'm going to talk about what I believe I do best: plot.
In some respects, I reverse engineer my plots. Each of my stories starts with an emotionally impactful moment, whether it's someone's death or a climatic battle, or anything to that effect. These moments form the climax of the plot, and from there, I work backwards, developing events that lead up to the moment, painting the characters involved, providing a setting, that sort of stuff.
So, presuming your mind works anything like mine (and if it does, I recommend you consult your local psychiatrist), you might find yourself wondering how to make the plot flow organically to the climax you have selected. I find that those answers often come as you're writing; the most important point of your plot is the beginning. Start off with a character and a motivation, and have them do something that puts them on the path of their destiny. Let's try Lord of the Rings as an example, since everything about that book makes an excellent example. The start: Frodo leaves home because a wizard gives him a ring and tells him to run. At this point, no one but Tolkien could imagine the climax in Mordor, and yet, this initial scene gets that ball rolling. From that start, there are a million and one ways to proceed - maybe he takes a boat down the river; maybe he ignores the quest and returns to the shire, only for it to be destroyed by orcs which forces him to begin his journey again; maybe he rides the eagles all the way to Mordor.
The point is, as long as you use character motivation to drive the plot, you're going to have a logical story. Make sure your characters, not you, make the story happen. Conflict, at its roots, is a conflict of interest - Sauron want to cover the world in darkness, and the fairer races prefer the light. The best way to make conflict is to make sure some people don't get along. There are many ways to generate conflict, from clashing nationalities or religions, to financial interests, political issues, Black Friday sales, anything people could possibly desire.
There's other forms of conflict as well, such as man vs nature. Here, nature has no motivation. Instead, you have to focus on how your character confronts this challenge nature presents them, and how they handle defeat or triumph. A good Tolkien example would be the fatigue and heat exhaustion the hobbits face on Mt. Doom. Just remember that coincidences that get characters into trouble is great, but coincidences that get them out is cheating. I think I said that last time, but it's one of my favorite pieces of advice. Plans always go awry (as I've experienced too many times for my taste), and a great way to see your character is in how they react to their plans falling apart. Do they accept it calmly and move on, or dwell over the failure, get angry or depressed, perhaps take delight in the unexpected surprise?
I suppose I'll break down my own story as well and see how well I do. If you haven't read Through the Aura, spoiler alert. I also found after finishing this thing that I get way too involved with the plot analysis, which was inevitable, so I'll go ahead and wrap it in spoiler tags so you don't have to read through it if you don't want to. I mean Jesus, if you're going to read that much, you might as well read the whole story.
Spoiler:
Summary
As far as summary goes, I don't think this one needs it much, since I stayed on track with this one for the most part, but I'll do it anyways. The key to plot is making sure every step of the way has a logical reason behind it. Coincidences are best used for making plans unravel or to give the plot a jump-start, not to drive important plot points later in the story. People can suspend their disbelief if a huge coincidence happens at the beginning of the story, but if it's toward the end, the reader will feel disoriented by the jump in logic.
So, that's that. I'll probably post again next Saturday or so. I noticed some people reading this, so I hoped you found it enlightening or enjoyable. If you feel like leaving advice or comments, through VM, PM, or whatever M you prefer, I'd be more than happy to hear them.
