Article: Plotting Out Your Writing: A New Perspective
So you want to write a story, eh? Fantastic, let's whip out an old classic and see how she rolls:
Ah yes, the tiresome, battered, worn-out plot mountain:
- Introduction/Exposition - Introduce the characters and setting
- Rising Action - Build tension and conflict
- Climax - Bring the conflict to a head
- Falling Action - Resolve loose ends and subplots
- Conclusion/denouement - Wrap up the story, reflect on events, give morals, and set up what will happen with the characters in the future
A veritable staple for all good novels and stories, right?
Wrong.
While it's not impossible to build an excellent story following this format (a great many stories do follow this format) I contend that it is by no means the staple format that should be followed for all of your stories. Particularly in the last couple hundred years, writers have begun to take a more sophisticated look at plot structure, and this is doing wonders to make writing more interesting.
If you're planning out your story and it seems a little bland, then consider these three techniques:
Mix Up Your Plot!
Consider this story opening:
* * *
Amberlene turned the corner and flung herself through the door, collapsing to the floor and gasping for breath. Pulling herself to her feet, she frantically secured the lock and peered through the curtain. What the hell had been chasing her? And what had it done to Scott?
A soft sound behind her. Amberlene whirled around, but it was too late. A massive hand closed over her head, and everything went black...
* * *
The day was bright and warm, and had started, as any good summer day should, wth her mother storming up the stairs at noon to wake her.
"AMBERLENE MARIE SILVER! You get your lazy backside out of that bed right now! It's noon already, and I won't stand for this a minute longer!"
What's going on here is this: I've taken a piece of the rising action and used it to begin the story. The result? I've flavored the entire mundane scene with tension, intrigue, and a sense of creeping malaise. The reader is going to want to read on, because I've made a promise-- "Something wicked this way comes." And I've done so in a much more dramatic way than foreshadowing affords.
Applying it to your story:
Let's assume you're writing a story of a harrowing, dangerous trek through a jungle. They're hunting a rare jungle beast: the last dragon. Fifteen men enter, and only one comes out, scarred and tortured by painful memories. It's a story with good potential, sure, but the layout seems rudimentary. Here's some ways you can creatively apply your plot to inspire you and give flavor:
Plot Format |
Explanation |
| Write an Extended denouement | The character is old now, and the prizes of his jungle trek-- the scales and head of the last dragon-- are meaningless. He's old, and he tells his story to his son because he wants it to be remembered. |
| Begin with the Climax | Give the reader a teaser of the main character in battle with the dragon. Heck, have the dragon kill a friend or two of his. Then cut back to the beginning, where they're cheerful and boasting of their glory to come. |
| Start with the Falling Action | A haggard group of ragged survivors, having killed the dragon, come home. They fight bitterly over the spoils of the battle and are haunted by the memories of what has happened as the jungle picks them off slowly, leaving only the main character to survive. |
Some of your ideas, of course, will be better than others. But using this technique can only increase your options for building your story.
Examples in Literature and Movies:
Movie/Book |
Unique Plot Structure |
| Titanic (Movie) | Starts with the denouement. The main character is an old woman already, coming to terms with her experience. |
| The Black Cat, by Poe | Begins with the denouement. The main character is condemned to die and is reflecting on his experiences before death. |
| Resivoir Dogs (Movie) | The story starts with the introduction, then moves to the second half of the rising action. It returns ocassionally to the first half of the rising action, but that part is largely omitted. The climax and falling action blend together, and there is no denouement. |
Omit Part of Your Plot
Creative omission of a piece of the plot is a fantastic way to improve an otherwise dull story. Cutting out a section of your story that seems like it'd be tiresome or redundant leaves everything up to your imagination. That's almost always better than spoon-feeding the details to the reader, as they will fill it with what they wanted to hear anyways. Here's an example for each plot piece:
Plot Omitted |
Example |
| Exposition | A man wakes up, disoriented, in an army hospital tent. Suffering from amnesia, he runs out to see total chaos on the battlefield. Will he take sides in this war he knows nothing about? |
| Rising Action | The myth of Prometheus, who saw that man suffered on earth. Prometheus steals fire from Zeus and gave it to man. Zeus became angry and punished Prometheus by strapping him to a rock and having his entrails ripped out by an eagle. |
| Climax | The main character is a man who survived a plane crash, although the other passengers did not. He avoids planes at all costs, but one day he is forced to ride one. The plane's pilot has a heart attack, and no one is left to fly the plane. The man closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and unbuckles his seat belt. Fade to black. |
| Falling Action | A noble knight seeks out to slay a dragon who has kidnapped the princess. The journey is long and the battle with the dragon is fierce. The knight slays the dragon and unties the princess. The journey home is skipped entirely, and the next piece of the story is their wedding day. |
| denouement | A wizard, during a journey to save his family, finds out that he is destined to save his country from the tyrrany of an evil monster. During the course of the journey, he learns of the deep evil and corrution plaguing his homeland. Knowing the monster to be the greater of the two evils, he hunts it down and slays it on a mountaintop. As he travels down the mountain, he looks out over his homeland. As he looks, clouds cover the sky and darken the land. The story ends. |
Think creatively about your piece! Major sections that seem like dead wood can be removed, and that omission can actually enormously improve the quality of your words. Before writing, look at your piece, consider whether sections you're battling with are necessary. If killing them makes it better- go for it!
Examples in Literature and Movies:
Movie/Book |
Unique Plot Structure |
| Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Movie) | Omits the denouement. The girl throws herself from a cliff, an act of faith that's supposed to lead to your dreams being fulfilled. But the resolution of whether that's true never comes. What happened next is up to our imagination. |
| The Black Cat, by Poe | Omits the falling action. Begins with the denouement, then proceeds to the introduction and rising action. Ends with the climax. |
| The Poisonwood Bible | Skips the introduction. In the first scene, the family is already in Africa and the father is standing before them, trying to bring Christianity into the land. Introductory information is instead scattered throughout the rising action and falling action. |
Make Your Plot a Piece of a Much Bigger Plot
What makes one person's journey epic? A connection to something much bigger than himself alone. Overshadow your story with something of enormous signifcance and it becomes symbolic, deep, and more likely to connect with your reader. One small struggle can be epic in proportion. Or the stuggle can be small and pitiful but still be an example of something enormous happening in the world, with your story giving a small example of what's happening thousands of times over.
Examples:
- Tell the story of one Haitan's struggle to survive after losing everything in an earthquake
- Share the story of a teacher who is fighting to nurture kids in an desloate inner city school
- Touch us with the struggle of a man or woman who is trying to provide for their family during the Great Depression
- Describe the life of a woman who struggles for dignity in a foreign land where women are radically oppressed
- Show one person's desperate fight with cancer
A grand scale will always draw the reader in. It makes the story more relevant to their lives and it has a more lasting impact on them. The reader will think a lot about what you said- perhaps for the rest of their lives. Your words become powerful, having the potential to open their eyes and hearts empathetically.
Movie/Book |
Unique Plot Structure |
| Fried Green Tomatoes | The older lady's story starts in its denouement while the younger lady's story begins with an introduction. As the old lady shares her story-- from introduction to falling action-- the younger lady follows a normal plot strucure as she finds her inner strength. |
| Seven Samurai (Movie) | While the movie has a typical plot structure, the entire story is part of the falling action of a much greater story- the dying off of the samurai. The samurai, as seen here, live both at the beginning and end of the movie, but the guns and their poverty show that the samurai, as a people, have long since seen their days of glory. |
| Hamlet | We begin the story during the climax for Hamlet's uncle, the new king. What follows would have been the falling action for the king, save for Hamlet, who has yet to live through his story. |
| The Odyssey | The entre story also serves as the falling action and conclusion of the story of the Trojan War. |
| To Kill a Mockingbird | Essentially, this is a collection of connected short stories. Each chapter follows a traditional plot format, and together each plot becomes a much larger plot. |
Conclusion
Whatever you do, BE CREATIVE! When it comes to plot lines, they don't make 'em like they used to. Don't box yourself into antiquated plot formats. Be diverse, be flexible, and divulge in new, better ways to build a story!