Methods and Exercises to Inspire Plot

Using Prompts, Tricks and Plain Old Theft to Find Plot

Sep 11, 2009

Writers know that a successful piece of fiction will engage the reader to the end. Plot inspiration isn't automatic, but the writer has several resources to get going.

In an interview published in The Writer’s Market 2005 edition, Author Julia Cameron whose book The Artist's Way, has helped thousands access their creativity through her workshops, stated, “Creativity is as natural to human beings as having blood and bone. It’s of our spiritual DNA.”

So if that is the case, why do many writer’s struggle with plot? Do we just sit and meditate and wait for that perfect plot to come from within? No, probably not, but something like that could happen. As noted in her book Bird by Bird, author Anne Lamott includes simply imaging her characters and daydreaming about them, as part of her morning writing routine.

The Origins of Plot

Writers understand that characters, action and emotions are essential to driving plot. Literary agent and author Donald Maass who wrote The Fire in Fiction: Passion, Purpose and Techniques to Make Your Novel Great, says the problem with fiction today is not that nothing is original or that much of what he sees are over-published clichés: even those seemingly overdone plots can evolve into very successful novels or stories. It is the lack of passion, fired by inspiration, that is the deal breaker for him. The fiction feels tired, according to Maass.

Exercises to Spice Up Your Fiction

Maass suggests four exercises to move your story along, engage the reader, and most importantly to him as a literary agent, engage and excite. Each exercise includes a series of prompts for the writer to think about and include that will help the reader determine what is most important to the story to keep it going. Each of Maass’ exercises fall under a heading, as briefly outlined here:

Other Origins of Plot Inspiration

Author Josip Novakovich notes that plot often surfaces as the result of characters, action and setting, but that predicament, or strange situations, can also be the impetus for a solid plot. Although being able to spontaneously create engaging plot outlines may be for some, not all writers think in such a linear fastion. Novakovich suggests several approaches for those who need help.

Stealing Plots

Some of the best writers in the world stole their plots according to Novakovich. Shakespeare took his ideas from Plutarch’s Lives, and Dostoyevsky got his inspiration from the newspaper! Novakovich himself created a story based on a pamphlet from a Baptist church which in part, likened self abuse to a high flying hawk that loses altitude and crashes. After further research on hawks, he wrote a story about the actions of a hawk that is trapped in an attic. The central theme of the story was freedom, which was his motivating inspiration for pushing the plot.

Tricks and Scraps of Paper

Most writer take notes wherever they go—on pieces of paper napkins, in note books, and even matchbook covers. As Novakovich notes in his book Fiction Writer’s Workshop, author Art Corriveau uses a sort of trick using his old notes and scraps of paper as a means to at least begin thinking about plot.

Putting them all in a box, Corriveau pulls out three of them, and keeps doing so until he had a solid and workable group of pieces to his story; setting, character and traits, and perhaps a circumstance that a character or characters could be worked into. This is a rather serendipitous, but effective way of approaching the problem of inspiration building.

Others use their notes in a more systematic manner. These writers keep an ongoing record of their notes involving characters, settings, conversations, situations—and then go through each category until a story evolves that will inspire the writer to start and keep at a piece of fiction. This is a little like the flip books we used as children, creating new faces on different torsos and legs, until one seems right!

Parody

One last avenue of plot inspiration noted by Novakovich is to parody existing plots. He uses Stephen Crane’s The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky as an example. In that book, Crane recreates a Western scene with a gun, holsters, and a potential shoot-out—and makes it comical. Crane also adds a predicament where the antagonist ends up confused. This adds a new element to the typical Western genre.

Plot Creation, Inspiration and Tricks of the Writing Trade

Writers need to understand the importance of plot, but they don’t have to struggle to create one. Inspiration for plot can come from various sources: character, setting, circumstances, real life, daydreaming, prompts and even those precious little scraps of paper they have been have been collecting for so many years.

The copyright of the article Methods and Exercises to Inspire Plot in Fiction Plots & Pacing is owned by Cynthia Keenan. Permission to republish Methods and Exercises to Inspire Plot in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.