I've been working on a novel (based loosely on a year of my life). I'm set on description, tone, and setting, but am having a hard time coming up with a driving narrative. I keep asking myself "What do my characters want? How do my characters change?" but feel my answers are either too cliched or too subtle/not big enough.
Anyone have any helpful writing/brainstorming exercises to help develop your plot? What's made you have the moment when you say to yourself, "Now that's interesting," rather than, "That could work. Maybe."
Plot exercises
Re: Plot exercises
This sounds more like a character development issue than a plot issue. For me, plot and plot twists frequently stem from obvious hot buttons that arise during character development. If my character has a major issue, I have to use that to torment the character. It's too rich an emotional mine to ignore. Plot and character end up shaping one another, back and forth, until I'm happy with both.
As far as plot exercises, I like playing with the tent illustration from Larry Brooks, web site storyfix.com.
For character, I have a long character template that asks questions about the character's life, past, psychological makeup, etc and how those will affect that plot. Quite a bit of it is based on the questions suggested by Donald Maass in WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL WORKBOOK and FIRE IN FICTION and James Scott Bell's PLOT AND STRUCTURE. I highly recommend the books and the template process, for lack of a better term.
My other suggestion would be to pay careful attention to not Mary-Sue-ing any of your characters, since it is based loosely on personal experience. It's hard hard hard to develop and torment a Mary Sue. The favoritism creeps in. They're awful characters to read about.
As far as plot exercises, I like playing with the tent illustration from Larry Brooks, web site storyfix.com.
For character, I have a long character template that asks questions about the character's life, past, psychological makeup, etc and how those will affect that plot. Quite a bit of it is based on the questions suggested by Donald Maass in WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL WORKBOOK and FIRE IN FICTION and James Scott Bell's PLOT AND STRUCTURE. I highly recommend the books and the template process, for lack of a better term.
My other suggestion would be to pay careful attention to not Mary-Sue-ing any of your characters, since it is based loosely on personal experience. It's hard hard hard to develop and torment a Mary Sue. The favoritism creeps in. They're awful characters to read about.
Urban fantasy, epic fantasy, and hot Norse elves. http://margolerwill.blogspot.com/
Re: Plot exercises
Based on an entire year? That's a lot of time to view at once and hold in the mind. Break it down into big blocks, smaller blocks, tiny blocks. Which ones can be conflated or rearranged? Which ones are causal? Which ones are complications? Initial complication by other terms, inciting crisis, First Cause. What sets the protagonist in motion? What's different one day from the thousands of other days in a lifetime? The billions of heartbeats? Complications compel efforts and cause purposeful change.
Magnitude of complication is also critical. A worn-out well pump is merely a minor complication, but it can be a First Cause that seems simple enough at first to repair. Building on the complication might be done by not having money for parts. Then the well repair is a bridging complication to a larger complication. Getting the money together might mean taking a risk with doubtful outcome. Water is already a potential theme, at least a motif.
For unity's sake, say the protagonist signs on a fishing boat for an overnight and all the next day expedition. Fishing for a living is risky work. No pay for a lot of hard work if there's not enough catch to pay for expenses. The only boat that would have him on short notice has a captain who takes chances and cheats his help and has a crack problem. The boat's gear is antiquated and it's a wet boat, meaning it leaks, but the bilge pumps are in good working condition. It's been blowing a gale for three days and the fish are scattered, but the forecast is for a sea change and the fish will school up feeding in shallow water until contrary winds blow up a long rolling swell late in the day. Fish on.
Most of twenty-four hours we spent motoring offshore to the fishing grounds, setting and hauling net, and motoring back. The nets came in the boat hand over hand and were so full of money fish they were floating when we got to 'em. Net piled on the deck, net on the pilot house, net on the forecastle, net on the reel, all full of fish. The gunnels were awash. The twenty-seven-foot boat shuddered under the burden. The swell arrived, fifteen-foot-high copper green edifices lined up to the horizon threatening to swamp the laboring boat.
On deck at the fish dealer's dock after twelve hours of clearing net 3,000 pounds of two-pound fish at four bits a pound fish stealer pay. Each fish had to come out of the net by hand one at time. Thirty-six hours after leaving the dock at midnight I had a quarter of the payoff in my pocket in cash, half for the boat, which meant the captain pocketed it along with his quarter share. The rent got paid on time for the first time that winter. I bought a new water pump and water heater. Cold showers had been getting old. Filet mignon and sirah wine for dinner. The captain lost his licenses later the next year over drug problems. The boat was hauled out and sold for parts, its hull burned on the railway. I moved on to new complications.
That nonfiction story wouldn't hold up for a novel's length. But as part of a couple years commercial fishing off and on and other relevant complications it just might. If I could only come up with a meaningful unifying theme. Vocational Tourist? Cosmopolitan Vagabond? Fish on.
Magnitude of complication is also critical. A worn-out well pump is merely a minor complication, but it can be a First Cause that seems simple enough at first to repair. Building on the complication might be done by not having money for parts. Then the well repair is a bridging complication to a larger complication. Getting the money together might mean taking a risk with doubtful outcome. Water is already a potential theme, at least a motif.
For unity's sake, say the protagonist signs on a fishing boat for an overnight and all the next day expedition. Fishing for a living is risky work. No pay for a lot of hard work if there's not enough catch to pay for expenses. The only boat that would have him on short notice has a captain who takes chances and cheats his help and has a crack problem. The boat's gear is antiquated and it's a wet boat, meaning it leaks, but the bilge pumps are in good working condition. It's been blowing a gale for three days and the fish are scattered, but the forecast is for a sea change and the fish will school up feeding in shallow water until contrary winds blow up a long rolling swell late in the day. Fish on.
Most of twenty-four hours we spent motoring offshore to the fishing grounds, setting and hauling net, and motoring back. The nets came in the boat hand over hand and were so full of money fish they were floating when we got to 'em. Net piled on the deck, net on the pilot house, net on the forecastle, net on the reel, all full of fish. The gunnels were awash. The twenty-seven-foot boat shuddered under the burden. The swell arrived, fifteen-foot-high copper green edifices lined up to the horizon threatening to swamp the laboring boat.
On deck at the fish dealer's dock after twelve hours of clearing net 3,000 pounds of two-pound fish at four bits a pound fish stealer pay. Each fish had to come out of the net by hand one at time. Thirty-six hours after leaving the dock at midnight I had a quarter of the payoff in my pocket in cash, half for the boat, which meant the captain pocketed it along with his quarter share. The rent got paid on time for the first time that winter. I bought a new water pump and water heater. Cold showers had been getting old. Filet mignon and sirah wine for dinner. The captain lost his licenses later the next year over drug problems. The boat was hauled out and sold for parts, its hull burned on the railway. I moved on to new complications.
That nonfiction story wouldn't hold up for a novel's length. But as part of a couple years commercial fishing off and on and other relevant complications it just might. If I could only come up with a meaningful unifying theme. Vocational Tourist? Cosmopolitan Vagabond? Fish on.
Spread the love of written word.
Who is online
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 39 guests