Posts tagged plot
The latest two volumes of Martin's Song of Ice and Fire have been poorly received compared to the series' earlier books. What's interesting here is that Martin's original plan did not include thes...
I was pondering a lot on the issue with copyrights on plots. Is having an identical plot infringing someone else's copyrighted work? I am fully aware that the character names are copyrighted and c...
I'm not a fan of Tolkien's work, but it's relevant to my question, so take it as a reference point. I love linguistics, culture, and worldbuilding, but sometimes have difficulty focusing on specif...
When I lay out a plot consisting of interwoven threads, one of the most annoying things is to manage effectively the factual, logical consistency of the whole. In order to be more effective and di...
I'm looking for books, essays and articles on plotting mystery/detective/investigation stories (and novels). The type of story I'm aiming for is in the vein of Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie, or ...
My story happens as a result of one of the main characters getting murdered. I'm wondering how to get readers to care about someone who's not even in the story (as far as the readers know anyway) o...
I've been having some trouble with the ending of my current story, and I've decided that the best way to deal with those issues is to include a major twist. Due to the nature of this twist, I'm not...
I'm attempting to understand how subplots work, and one aspect has me confused. I'm trying to create a process by which I can create subplots. When I create the main plot, I start with conflict - t...
I'm writing a series, and I have two protagonists. Both are PoV characters, and both offer different viewpoints on the main conflict (an ongoing war). One is a respected general, has frequent conta...
I recently asked this question, about inner conflict. Mark Baker supplied an answer to that question which redefined how I saw inner conflict, and as a result, the whole process of making a novel. ...
I'm a plotter, meaning I plan and develop my books before ever writing the first draft. I've given a good deal of thought to character, stakes, and the other parts of novel creation, and I feel lik...
I've been doing some research into twists, and after not knowing how to create one, I'm starting to get a handle on them. Unfortunately, now I'm at the other end of the spectrum, and wondering if I...
Disclaimer: This is not a duplicate of this question. That question deals with subplots being necessary to a story's success, and also loosely how to create them. This question is aimed at knowing ...
I have run into a bit of a dilemma in my current story. The main character is on a journey to save her brother from the enemies. She suddenly finds that he is helping them willingly. Despite this...
I've recently begun studying subplots, and I've realized I don't know how far I should develop them. Does a subplot need everything a main plot does? Does there even need to be a conflict for the s...
Note: As with any aspect of writing, I'm sure there are those who disagree with it. If you disagree with the conclusions I've come to below, I would like to hear your thoughts. However, I would ask...
I've always felt that my writing is very sequential. It's a chain of events. This happens, then this happens, then this happens, and so on. Not to say that the events are boring, but I just always ...
I've heard quite a few complaints about character deaths being used to further the plot. They say it's boring and overdone and mention that there are plenty of other ways to get to the same point w...
I am an aspiring author, and I have recently just begun developing my first novel. It is a series, but I have engineered the first novel to be a standalone in case the series falls through. When ...
I've been writing for four years without knowledge of the three act structure. When I discovered it about a year ago, I therefore had no room for it in my writing process, mainly because I had diff...
In studying writing, I've learned that you need to give your protagonist something - usually a quality - that makes the reader want him to win. Without this quality, the reader doesn't care what ha...
I've recently been having trouble with developing plots. The plots I created seemed heavily sequential. No matter how many twists or complications I put in, they always seemed dry, proceeding from ...
I wasn't entirely sure how to phrase the title, so if a better way to put it occurs to anyone, please feel free to edit it. Here's the situation: the goal of a novel is to get the main character ...
I am writing a novel, and in one part, a boy falls off the building. I feel like it would be very gory. Most people said to write in great detail, but then some people say to write what I know. I f...
I'm in the process of writing a mystery novel/novella and it conforms to the traditional/classic mystery novel, emulating that of Agatha Christie or A.C. Doyle. I'm having doubts as to the proper w...
Subverting expectations and suddenly aborting plotlines was a no-go zone for me for a while. The only time I could successfully abort a plotline was in a thought train. After watching How To Tr...
So I have a character in a dystopian novel I’m working on by the name of Tyler. He’s inspired by Alex Høgh Andersen’s portrayal of Ivar the Boneless, and his death... is interesting. He’s, for the ...
I'm writing a screenplay for a project in my film studies class and I'm close to resolving the conflict, but as I near the end, it feels like it's being resolved far too easily. In summary, the st...
Misinformation is an important element of my story as is pretty much kicks the plot in motion: Gyvaris, a young dragon, steals a sheep from a large flock since he's really hungry and just couldn't...
TLDR How to keep a character's skillset hidden, when it will be key in the story later on? This must be done without magic and as subtly as humanly possible. I am working on a medieval fantasy ...
Assuming this vocabulary: the narrative arc is the arc which makes the plot go forward, while the emotional arc is the arc which engage the character on a deeper, not always logical level. While t...
In the first discussion of the concept of "plot" given by [1] I, maybe, understood two different, but complementary, concepts of plot. Mckee gives us a definition of Plot as: To PLOT mean to n...
I have three variations of the same storyline and cannot decide which one I want to write: erotic story turning dark and dangerous A young adult man and woman fall in love. It is the woman's fir...
I'm writing for an amnesiac protagonist, in spite of the fact that I feel amnesia in fiction is usually a bad cliché used to avoid some of the background work of creating a character's family, frie...
I'm working on a novel that will have at least three distinct sections in three distinct locations (the two main characters start in the first location, travel through the second location, and one ...
In my post-apocalyptic novel, there are two "twists", but they're mostly tied up in each other. The first is that humans have developed different kinds of kineses, like hydrokinesis, telekinesis, ...
TLDR: Tips and Tricks for storyboarding a novel? For someone who can't draw well enough to do the "Draw and describe method" Hello, having read the "Storyboard a Novel?" as well as some sources ...
In a post-apocalyptic novel I'm writing (which is the subject of many questions I've asked on Writing.SE), I recently cut out my entire Chapter 10-11. I was revealing the MC, Eris' finékinesis (de...
Is there a specific name for the plot device in which the story's "Big Bad" has a cunning plan to use some monstrous being to further their diabolical machinations. This may be something summoned f...
I'm developing a story with the following basic plot: At the start, my main character's motivating question is "Where is my brother?" As the story progresses, other problems and motivations get i...
So, I have a couple moments in a fantasy story where I want the heroes' actions to actually have consequences (Well, that are really impactful to the story.) One is where the MCs kill a minor lord,...
I'll explain my question by citing what was done on the TV show Dexter. Halfway through an episode (Season 4, episode 4, 'All in the Family') two established characters (one of them being Deborah)...
So, with the recent craze in waifu games, I've decided to try my hand at making one. I have a semi-intricate plot with twists, and some events planned with their own snippet of story. Problem is, I...
What are the recognizable tropes to a "train heist", or more broadly the action sequences where a protagonist boards a moving train in order to stop it? My protagonist is the unreliable guile her...
This may seem like an awkward scenario for a story's ending. My plot revolves around a constant struggle of the protagonist against the antagonist's forces, and eventually the antagonist himself. I...
I have read a couple romance books at most and so don’t claim to have very much experience with romance and clichés. But here are the ones I can think of: Something happens to make them hate eac...
So, my story doesn't have a romance subplot until way later in the series, but I think that there are elements of the romance very early on. A little background info: The story is set in a fantas...
I gave my latest book to my favorite beta readers, and they liked it except for the very ending, i.e. the last 20 pages, which they thought fell short and a bit rushed. I therefore decided to try a...
I'm compiling in-world legends for my built world, and would like them to feel like established legends from our own human experience. What should I keep in mind while writing these legends? What...