More plot considerations

[resonant]

Since so many of y'all responded to the angry wombat theory of plotting, I gather I'm not the only writer here who's trying to turn a puzzle brain into a drama brain, so here's more of what I'm learning from plotting books.



Having finished Ansen Dibell's Plot, I immediately dived into Nancy Kress's Beginnings, Middles, and Ends, which was also very helpful. (That Writers Digest series is 2 for 2 now.)

The conceptual tool I got from this one is the idea of forces. Kress defines the climax as "the event that brings into collision all the forces you've set up. ... After mentally identifying those forces, you can work backward, choosing scenes for the middle that will dramatize the inexorable build of conflicting elements."

When I began actually trying that with all the various novels and long stories that are bogged down in the middle, I discovered that I could do a sort of Plot Algebra: once I listed everything I had, I'd be able to solve for whatever variable I didn't have.

If I knew what the climax needed to be, but couldn't quite seem to get there, I'd be able to look at the list of "forces" and see which ones I hadn't included in the middle of the story. And if I had the middle well along but couldn't quite see the climax from where I was, the list of forces would clarify what was going to need to happen.

Then I thought of something else. As I'm sure I've mentioned, I write most of my stories in a circle. I start somewhere in the middle (usually just before the sexual tension breaks, since that's the spot that's most interesting to me), write through to the end, then go back to the beginning and work my way to the middle again.

Well, in a typical PWP, the place where the sexual tension breaks is the climax of the story. So what I've been instinctively doing is writing the climax first, then going back and starting the necessary forces in motion.

This generally works really well, even when the story changes shape in the writing. It's just exactly the sort of thing that would be helpful to someone like me who tends to get bogged down in the middle. But I never would have done it if it hadn't been for the sex.

Seriously. If I'd started out writing mysteries, I'd probably have had the sense to know whodunit from the start, but it never would have occurred to me to start out by writing the moment when the killer is identified. If I'd started out writing fantasy, I'm sure I wouldn't have gone straight to the culmination of the quest and the battle with the great supernatural guardian of the Stone of Whatever. The only reason I did this was because I was writing smut.

Smut. The best writing school there is.

Comments

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad it's helping someone other than me!