Ideas in Creative Writing – Plot Construction
Tips on Constructing an Inventive and Unique Plotline
Sep 6, 2008
Plot development is quite likely the most difficult part of constructing a narrative – especially so in lengthy pieces such as novels or even cycles or the ever popular trilogy. The importance of plot can never be emphasized enough, the construction of your plot contains several elements that will essentially determine whether your work of fiction is a success or a failure.
Research, Timeline & Backgrounder
When writing fiction, it is extremely important to do an immense amount of research on a bevy of subjects that will be relevant to the action of your story. Without doing proper research it is startlingly easy to fall into the trap of making blunders with regards to writing about objects, concepts, and scientific facts or principles that you know very little about.
When creating a plot, it is often best to start with a backgrounder – to ensure consistency between events, histories, and character backgrounds and assocations. This prevents you from saying that “Thomas” was born in Madrid on page 314 of your novel, when on page 34 and 89 he refers to his family back home in Paris. Nailing down the minutae of your characters and their histories is a major first step.
In creating a timeline, draw a loose framework of plot twists and events that culminate in the climax of your work – in a short story it is much easier to do this than in a novel as there is much less to consider – however in a novel the climax normally takes place very close to the close of your work, allowing just enough space for the denouement.
The denouement is a period of resolution, with most mysteries being solved and loose ends tied up, though perhaps leaving a few unsolved for the reader to discuss or try to resolve on their own terms. This period of relief and catharsis following the literary climax is useful, technically, to guide the reader into a sense of completion.
A good timeline, includes:
- Pre-history
- Recent history
- Introductory events
- Characterization
And motivational events in order to kickstart the plot, and then progresses into the typical rising action/climax/falling action wavelength until your major climax, a crescendo of action and emotion, and finally the denouement. Without having a fairly detailed timeline, your work will suffer from poor pacing and the reader may become wholly disinterested.
A pre-history is important to establish both the antecedents of your character as well as to provide the reader with appropriate narrative context from which to consider the events and decisions that will kickstart the action. Many decisions that are extremely serious for the protagonists may not carry the gravity that you would assume as the author without first telling the reader why these decisions are important and weighty.
Perhaps the reader would be more apt to empathize with “Thomas” in his decision to commit murder if they were privy to the information that he was in fact avenging the “accidental” death of his father and has, in his grief, laid the blame at the feet of his superior officer in the local police department rather than the suicide it really had been. Other pre-histories may be more grandiose in scope, detailing the rise and fall of galactic empires, barbarian hordes, still others simply whispering of adulterous affairs and broken hearts.
(Click for an explaination of themes, message, and an exercise!)
