LeilaniOtter
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This is another exercise I learned (long ago) that involves expansion to create story plotting. I still find this VERY helpful today.
Let me start by offering you this sentence. Without even thinking about it, you should know exactly what story we are talking about:
A shark invades a coastal town.
Peter Benchley's "Jaws" was an instant best-seller and spawned the blockbuster movie by Steven Spielberg in the summer of 1975. It not only scared the hell out of us, but it opened up a brand-new fascination with sharks, their behavior, their science, and how to live with them peacefully. Sharks are not evil. They're just hungry. ?
Now, let's say you're writing "Jaws" for the first time. You're going to be Mr. Benchley. How would you bring about this sentence structure even more?
A great-white shark invades a sleepy New England coastal town.
We've just further detailed our plot, haven't we? This is no ordinary shark; this is the king of all sharks, the baddest of them all. And it's going after a sleepy coastal town in the area of New York, far from the maddening rush of the big city. This is a town not used to big surprises. Everyone knows everyone else. It's quaint. Now, let's really move the plot along...
A great-white shark invades a sleepy New England coastal town at the height of its summer tourist season, its chief source of income.
The plot is even more complicated now, isn't it? We've got a great-white shark about to go head to head with thousands of summer-loving, water-loving tourists. This will not be pretty. Add to this the compounding situation of money. No tourists, no money. Well, this town can't have that happen, so someone needs to step in...
A great-white shark invades a sleepy New England coastal town at the height of its summer tourist season, its chief source of income. The mayor tries to find alternative ways to deal with the madness, while a hydrophobic chief of police tries to cope with the possibility of even more attacks.
Notice how the characters that are added to the plot now help develop the plot further? Now let's add a few more characters and we get:
A great-white shark invades a sleepy New England coastal town at the height of its summer tourist season, its chief source of income. The mayor tries to find alternative ways to deal with the madness, while a hydrophobic chief of police tries to cope with the possibility of even more attacks. The only people in his corner are a meek but intelligent oceanographer, and a crazed, obsessive shark hunter with a Captain Ahab complex.
POW! We've got ourselves a best-seller brewing here! ? Take a bow, Mr. Benchley, and rest your soul. This is a very powerful plot. Just seeing this on a back cover, wouldn't you have been very eager to pick this book up at a library? I sure was. *^^*
See how primary and secondary characters help to structure and expand the plot of your story? This is how easy it really is to get a good plot going. It starts with a few words, and then balloons from there until you have whole sentences. Now, to be fair, "Jaws" is pretty easy to predict, because most of us have seen or read it. Let's try something else, one of my favorite horror stories of all time, and again, see if you can guess it.
A mysterious trinket grants three wishes.
Do you know the short story yet? Might be hard because the plot is not very convoluted or intricate. Yet.
A mysterious trinket from India grants three wishes to a father, his wife and their only son in turn-of-the-century London, England.
I'll bet you know it now. But just in case you don't, let's fill in the missing pieces.
A mysterious trinket from India grants three wishes to a father, his wife and their only son in turn-of-the-century London, England. The father first wishes for a large sum of money, but the wish causes his son to die, leaving them the insurance money he had wished for. The wife, heart-broken, makes the next wish - that their son may live again. When later that night, they hear what could have been their son pounding on their door, the father fumbles in the dark for the trinket, and makes his third wish.
If you've never read W.W. Jacobs' "The Monkey's Paw" from 1902, give it a good, steamy read. ? You will never forget it. In just a few pages, such a wonderful tale is woven, that for over a hundred years, and several thousand stories, the "be careful what you wish for" adage has been duplicated - but none with quite the success as this horror masterpiece.
So, these are examples of developing your plot. I hear so many people tell me they get "stuck" at a point in their story, and are not sure where to go with it. Well, this is why I tell writers to "backtrack", and get their whole story plotted out, just like I've shown in the two examples. Start with a few words, and then build from there until you have sentences, and before you know it, you'll have your whole story outlined.
How about one more, perhaps closer to everyone's hearts:
A little girl is transported to a magical world.
Quite vague, right? And probably could be anything at this point! So, we'll have to expand a little bit, and add some details.
A little girl from a Kansas farm is transported by a tornado to a magical world.
And now, obviously you know the story, "The Wizard of Oz". But notice again how you needed just a few more words to develop the plot. This could just as easily have been "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" or maybe a hundred other books. ?
Expansion is key to the plot. If you get stuck on something, you can backtrack and work out how your story should go via your outline. All the magic happens in that outline, and to create the outline successfully, you have to expand as you go. Best of luck and in another post, I'll show you how to use your characters in the expansion. ?
Let me start by offering you this sentence. Without even thinking about it, you should know exactly what story we are talking about:
A shark invades a coastal town.
Peter Benchley's "Jaws" was an instant best-seller and spawned the blockbuster movie by Steven Spielberg in the summer of 1975. It not only scared the hell out of us, but it opened up a brand-new fascination with sharks, their behavior, their science, and how to live with them peacefully. Sharks are not evil. They're just hungry. ?
Now, let's say you're writing "Jaws" for the first time. You're going to be Mr. Benchley. How would you bring about this sentence structure even more?
A great-white shark invades a sleepy New England coastal town.
We've just further detailed our plot, haven't we? This is no ordinary shark; this is the king of all sharks, the baddest of them all. And it's going after a sleepy coastal town in the area of New York, far from the maddening rush of the big city. This is a town not used to big surprises. Everyone knows everyone else. It's quaint. Now, let's really move the plot along...
A great-white shark invades a sleepy New England coastal town at the height of its summer tourist season, its chief source of income.
The plot is even more complicated now, isn't it? We've got a great-white shark about to go head to head with thousands of summer-loving, water-loving tourists. This will not be pretty. Add to this the compounding situation of money. No tourists, no money. Well, this town can't have that happen, so someone needs to step in...
A great-white shark invades a sleepy New England coastal town at the height of its summer tourist season, its chief source of income. The mayor tries to find alternative ways to deal with the madness, while a hydrophobic chief of police tries to cope with the possibility of even more attacks.
Notice how the characters that are added to the plot now help develop the plot further? Now let's add a few more characters and we get:
A great-white shark invades a sleepy New England coastal town at the height of its summer tourist season, its chief source of income. The mayor tries to find alternative ways to deal with the madness, while a hydrophobic chief of police tries to cope with the possibility of even more attacks. The only people in his corner are a meek but intelligent oceanographer, and a crazed, obsessive shark hunter with a Captain Ahab complex.
POW! We've got ourselves a best-seller brewing here! ? Take a bow, Mr. Benchley, and rest your soul. This is a very powerful plot. Just seeing this on a back cover, wouldn't you have been very eager to pick this book up at a library? I sure was. *^^*
See how primary and secondary characters help to structure and expand the plot of your story? This is how easy it really is to get a good plot going. It starts with a few words, and then balloons from there until you have whole sentences. Now, to be fair, "Jaws" is pretty easy to predict, because most of us have seen or read it. Let's try something else, one of my favorite horror stories of all time, and again, see if you can guess it.
A mysterious trinket grants three wishes.
Do you know the short story yet? Might be hard because the plot is not very convoluted or intricate. Yet.
A mysterious trinket from India grants three wishes to a father, his wife and their only son in turn-of-the-century London, England.
I'll bet you know it now. But just in case you don't, let's fill in the missing pieces.
A mysterious trinket from India grants three wishes to a father, his wife and their only son in turn-of-the-century London, England. The father first wishes for a large sum of money, but the wish causes his son to die, leaving them the insurance money he had wished for. The wife, heart-broken, makes the next wish - that their son may live again. When later that night, they hear what could have been their son pounding on their door, the father fumbles in the dark for the trinket, and makes his third wish.
If you've never read W.W. Jacobs' "The Monkey's Paw" from 1902, give it a good, steamy read. ? You will never forget it. In just a few pages, such a wonderful tale is woven, that for over a hundred years, and several thousand stories, the "be careful what you wish for" adage has been duplicated - but none with quite the success as this horror masterpiece.
So, these are examples of developing your plot. I hear so many people tell me they get "stuck" at a point in their story, and are not sure where to go with it. Well, this is why I tell writers to "backtrack", and get their whole story plotted out, just like I've shown in the two examples. Start with a few words, and then build from there until you have sentences, and before you know it, you'll have your whole story outlined.
How about one more, perhaps closer to everyone's hearts:
A little girl is transported to a magical world.
Quite vague, right? And probably could be anything at this point! So, we'll have to expand a little bit, and add some details.
A little girl from a Kansas farm is transported by a tornado to a magical world.
And now, obviously you know the story, "The Wizard of Oz". But notice again how you needed just a few more words to develop the plot. This could just as easily have been "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" or maybe a hundred other books. ?
Expansion is key to the plot. If you get stuck on something, you can backtrack and work out how your story should go via your outline. All the magic happens in that outline, and to create the outline successfully, you have to expand as you go. Best of luck and in another post, I'll show you how to use your characters in the expansion. ?
