A great plot starts with a great story. It’s easy to mistake an interesting situation for an actual story – perhaps the easiest way to sum up the difference is that situations are static and a story moves.
For example…
Fourteen-year-old Jasmine lives in a small village in the middle of the desert. She and her family – indeed the entire village – are very poor, entirely cut off from the wider world. Jasmine would love to go to school and her beloved father (a struggling farmer) has been teaching her to read, but Jasmine has six younger brothers and sisters and, since her mum died, is having to help look after them. School is a luxury her family can’t afford. Undaunted, Jasmine recently managed to manufacture a bike out of scrap and is using it to travel to the nearest town to find work to supplement the family income.
This is an interesting situation – we’re drawn to Jasmine who sounds courageous and resourceful and we sympathise with her situation, especially the fact that she doesn’t have a mum and is unable to attend school because of her family responsibilities.
However, by my definition this is not a story, because it’s just a snapshot of Jasmine’s life – a picture of how she lives.
So, what if…
Jasmine’s father falls ill. Dangerously ill. The local doctor tells Jasmine that the medicine he needs is only available in the nearest town, which is 20 miles away. If he doesn’t get the medicine he will be dead by morning.
This heart-breaking state of affairs gives us a much more interesting situation…
The only way to get the medicine in time to save Dad’s life is for Jasmine to get on her bike and pedal hard to the town 20 miles away.
Now we have two of the basic components of a story – a character who we are rooting for with a goal (and/or need) that really matters. If we’re planning on writing a story with a strong plot and loads of suspense it’s vital that the stakes are high for the main character – and that he or she is the only person who can save the day.
But there’s still something missing…
Jasmine runs to her bike, ready to embark on the desperate race against time that will save Dad’s life… only to find that someone has stolen it.
At last we have a full-on story: a character with a goal – and an obstacle in the way of her achieving that goal. The stakes are high and there’s lots of potential for conflict and drama. Of course it’s possible to write a great story without these elements – or to internalise the goal, making it more of a psychological need with mental, rather than physical, obstacles – but for me the best stories usually have both a goal and an underlying need.
With this structure in place, it’s far easier to start thinking about a plot to get Jasmine firstly past her bicycle problem, secondly to the town and the medicine and thirdly back to dad. Will she manage to save his life or will she be too late? This is the plot question that our story asks. And it’s the writer’s job, having asked the question, to answer it by the end.
Each of the three acts of the drama outlined above will contain many smaller scenes. Each of these should in some way move the story on, so that if you took them away the story would fall apart. And, ideally, each should end with a hook to compel the reader to turn the page.
With every scene I write I ask myself:
- Is what has happened unexpected, yet credible and convincing?
- Is the plot unfolding clearly: neither so slow that it’s boring nor so fast that it’s confusing?
- Is the main character(s) at the heart of the scene, moving the action on?
Clearly a strong, suspenseful tale requires far more than the ideas I’ve written about here. And – to stress – these are just suggestions, principles of storytelling that I have found useful. Plotting is a challenging business and there are no rules! But when you get it right you’ll be rewarded with readers who won’t be able to put down your story.
Sophie McKenzie is the award-winning author of a range of teen thrillers, including the Missing series (Girl, Missing, Sister, Missing and Missing Me), Blood Ties and Blood Ransom and the Medusa Project series. She has also written two romance series: the Luke and Eve books and the Flynn series, which starts with the novel Falling Fast. Her latest book is All My Secrets. Find out more about Sophie at sophiemckenziebooks.com
