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

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

*nodnodnod*

I usually start with the question "What would it take to get X into bed with Y at time Z?" Since X is usually Snape, there's generally quite a lot that would have to happen, and by the time I've broken it down into Things To Be Dealt With and Ways To Deal With Them I have a series of scenes and a rough order for them.

[starkittyn.livejournal.com]

I've recently really had that very thing brought home to me. I started a fic for a challenge involving Snape and when I got into it, I saw that a lot of stuff had to happen before Snape would get to the part where he was with so and so. Coicidentally it's the longest and most involved story I've written to date.

I do think that smut because it is "climax" driven, heh heh, is a good teacher in some ways, if you let it be.

[starkittyn.livejournal.com]

That's really interesting. I never thought of starting "in the middle" as it were although I agree with you, the part where the ust breaks so to speak is usually the most interesting part to me as well.

Thank you for sharing these things, I'm very much enjoying your thoughts. :)

[julia-fractal.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Your LJ is like Cole's Notes for writing books, only better because there are clever insights, angry wombats and smut :)

I've read Beginnings, Middles, and Ends too, but somehow her point about forces didn't stand out so clearly for me. I tend to write in patches. Whatever I know of the story goes in first, which is usually all the critical parts including the ending, beginning, and bits and pieces of the middle. After that (if I'm lucky) I go back and fill in whatever is needed to make the story coherent. Now that I think about it, forces and plot algebra summarizes this process perfectly.

And I totally agree with your point about smut writing as excellent plotting practice. I have a Snape/Harry WIP which so far consists of nothing but 3 sex scenes, but I managed to figure out the shape of the story based on those alone :)

[zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com]

The Elements of Writing series is pretty good, but avoid the book on dialogue. It's completely retarded.

[sine-que-non767.livejournal.com]

You are brilliant.

So what I've been instinctively doing is writing the climax first, then going back and starting the necessary forces in motion.

This is also how I work; and the smut drives me, too. :) I have a big long plotty fic planned in which there's a lot less sex, and it's going to be interesting to see how I write when there isn't much smut to plan. (Even how I phrase it - 'less sex'! Woe!) My mental image of it at the moment is a clear beginning to middle, a big long desert of nothingness that I have to fill in, and bits of the end - which include the smut.

*adds book to wish list*
*memories post*

[marprelate.livejournal.com]

This is such a helpful post. I've always acknoledged myself to be weak on plot and looking at the way other people construct it gives me - ideas. Thanks so much!

[marprelate.livejournal.com]

The difference a 'w' can make. "acknowledged", even. Pls to forgive k.

[mzcalypso.livejournal.com]

The mental image an angry wombat flung into bed between HH and AK was so overwhelming that I must go lie down now.

Thanks for the link!

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

I always am in awe of people who can do that. If I wrote the end first, when I went back to write the beginning, they'd no longer match up. I always just have to start from the beginning and write to the end.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

[laughing] The shortest distance between Snape and any sort of vulnerability isn't going to be a very short distance at all, is it?

Your billiards metaphor keeps coming back to me. It fits well with the idea of 'forces,' actually -- a vector, something moving, something that can impart some or all of its force into something else.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Good! Glad to know my scattered thoughts are of some use to someone other than me.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I read an interview with Diana Gabaldon, and she described her writing process very much like yours. The metaphor she used was of draining the water out of a lake -- the highest points will appear above the waterline first, and those are the big important scenes, and she writes them first and then fills in what happens around them.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I saw that on the list and I wondered how on earth someone got a whole book out of dialogue. How much is there to learn about dialogue, really??

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Yeah, see, this is my problem with all my various and sundry novels-in-progress. Which is why I'm reading plot books rather than, oh, say, writing.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

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

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

Poor smushed wombat.

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

I've had that happen, but then I get to just write a different sex scene. And unlike writing plots, writing sex scenes is fun for me.

[zvi-likes-tv.livejournal.com]

Don't know. Couldn't finish. He attempts to pad the book out with socratic dialogue and an imaginary conversation with, someone, I forget who. Maybe Socrates. I just couldn't take it, very soon after I began reading.

[mzcalypso.livejournal.com]

It's the bits that might get nipped that concerned me... wombats are cute, but they have Great Big Pointy Teeth!

[mzcalypso.livejournal.com]

You're lucky. I think they're the (sorry) hardest thing to write without repeating what I've already done. (Insert. Remove. Repeat.) And there's the unintentional humor, like the classic, "His breath came in short pants." (and a football jersey?)

[resonant8.livejournal.com]

[snerk]

For a long time I naively assumed that writing sex was fun for everybody. It still seems strange to me to hear people say they don't like it. But I guess even though it's the payoff for readers, that doesn't necessarily mean it is for writers.