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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/33110
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I have an idea for the beginning of a story. I have the setting, the protagonist, and the events that set the story in motion, including the inciting incident and the first plot point. I have, in short, what might become act one.

But I don't know how to go on from there. I know how to plot (when I have a storyline), but I don't know how to come up with a storyline when I have its beginning.

I have tried:

- to "discovery-write", and see where the beginning leads me: the outcome was a tale that meandered randomly and, as the story wasn't about anything, lacking a satisfying resolution at the end
- the Snowflake Method: this does not work if you don't know the one-sentence-summary of your story
- writing another story in the meantime

Consider the _Hunger Games_ as an illustrative example: I have the world Panem, the protagonists Katniss and Peeta, and the story up until the two are chosen as tributes and board the train to the Capitol. If that was all the idea I had for a story, how would I go about finding the rest of it? How do Rue, the berries, and President Snow follow from that beginning?

_(I understand that the author, Suzanne Collins, very likely did not create the plot of her trilogy from its beginning. I would just like to use an example where we know the whole story as it has been published and successful and consider how the main storyline might be derived from its beginning.)_

Original score: 25