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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/4730
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

When you say you suck at plots, you may be looking at the wrong level. Everyone sucks at plotting in the beginning. I suspect that a plot never comes fully formed to anyone. You have to tease it out. You have to play with the tools of writing.

I am currently reading _Story Engineering_ and loving it (long as you skim over the first 50 pages of sales pitch.) He talks about the six core competencies of writing fiction. I've heard good things about all four books oldrobotsneverrust suggested. Just because a good writer makes it look easy, doesn't mean that writing fiction is easy. Takes work.

But shy of reading a whole book, you might try what Stephen King does (and me) and talks about in **_On Writing_**. He starts with a few characters and the concept question, a what-if question. What if a regular kid found proof of alien visitations? And what if his most trusted punker friend wants to steal it from him and destroy it for no apparent reason? OR: What if a punker geek met a pretty preppy girl who just happened to have more info about conspiracies than he did? How would his attraction move the story forward? What if two punkers competed on a trivial task, and what the winner created turned out to have galactic significance?

This is referred to as a **pantser** , writing by the seat of your pants, and is considered by most to be very hard, unless you are Stephen King. But for me, learning to create good concepts was a powerful exercise. Never mind what they do when they meet. Just put them in a room and see what they do. Tease out the inciting incident that launches the journey of the story. Create interesting characters and let them tell you where they want to go. Just put them in interesting situations.

As for whether a plot is a cliche, I agree with @oldrobotsneverrust. Don't worry about it. If you characters are rich in depth, inner demons and complexity, it won't matter if the plot has been done a dozen times.

So just start creating lots of concepts and ask people if they would want to read such a book. Or start to look for the concept in books you've read, so you get good at understanding what a concept looks like. You might even start with writing short stories, rather than the daunting task of writing a book first.

Another exercise I created was **fictionalized reality**. Start to notice when some trivial event happened in your life, one that happens to feel more rich with detail that most events. Write it up with all the texture of a novel, learning to add setup, backstory and voice.

Like this:

> "He sat at the computer answering yet another question on the writers board, still irritated at that last BSOD crash. His desk was littered with scraps of do-lists and scattered index cards from his recent novel project. He had no time for such attempts to help, when his own novel had fallen so far behind. Maybe he'd never finish it. Maybe it was true what they say. Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.
> 
> "But he couldn't just quit. He'd just made a brilliant point, one that needed follow up. One last thing and that would nail it. He needed to do this. He needed to be helpful.
> 
> "He turned to look out his apartment window, looking onto the deserted church parking lot. The service seemed to have ended early. No, wait. It was the 4 p.m. service and the time was now approaching 6 p.m. Ali would be waiting for him, complete unwilling to press play on the DVR before he got there for their ritual viewing of Warehouse Thirteen."

See. Just learn to capture the voice, and remember to add more texture like colors, sensations of the wood, smells, anything to make it more rich than it is. Just remember, that the reader will cut out half or more of the details you add. So add at least twice what you need. Hope it helps.

Original score: 11