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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26013
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/26013
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

You may be discovering the difference between a plot and a story. A plot is a series of events. A story is an arc of rising tension followed by a resolution. Events intervene in the lives of characters to drive the rise in tension, but the tension itself comes from the characters, who they are, what they want, and what they are willing to do to get it.

It is often quite easy to come up with a detailed outline of a plot without putting any real thought into the arc of the story. When that happens, the result will either be a flat story, or, as in your case, you will begin to discover who the characters are, and therefore what the sources of tension are, as you write.

At that point, the sequence of events that you have outlined will almost certainly not be the sequence of interventions you need to drive the tension of your story. Why would they be? They were not designed for that purpose.

Outlining a story is much harder work than outlining a plot, and it is often hard to tell the difference. But a plot outline without a very firm idea of the story arc whose tension the plot is driving, simply isn't going to hold up.

So, on this occasion and in general my advice is the same: find your story arc. Find the tension that drives the story. Then write a plot to fit. Whether you can outline your story arc before you begin or whether you have to start writing your characters in order to figure out what tension drives them, is something you may need to discover for yourself. There are specific techniques for mapping the rising tension of a story arc, for mapping out the two-steps-forward-one-step-back structure of many plots. Different approaches are likely to work for different people.

Whatever you do though, always remember that plot is the servant of story and until you understand the tension the drive the story arc, you don't know what your story is yet.

Original score: 13