The Art of Plotting

“’The king died, and then the queen died,’ is a [chronicle] story, while ‘The king died, and then the queen died of grief,’ is a plot.”—E.M. Forster

We are constructing a sequence of events causatively linked in linear time about goal-directed action that results in a resolution. And we are going to follow the Chekhov’s Gun principle.

In the former, there are two independent events. In the latter, the second thing stems from the first thing.

Three thousand years ago, Aristotle spoke about a plot being the sequence of events being linked by cause and effect relationships. In Aristotelian terms, the final causation must drive all preceding events. So if we are plotting, we are constructing a sequence of events causatively linked in linear time about goal-directed action that results in a resolution. And we are going to follow the Chekhov’s Gun principle—i.e. to eliminate everything that is irrelevant.

Before we resolve the question of a process for what is essentially a highly creative endeavor, we must first establish what it is that we are first constructing. It’s the plot, not the narrative.

How we write or show the sequence will become the narrative. Later.

A Plot Serves as the Base for the Narrative

A plot and a narrative are not the same thing. In the 2015 Academy Awards Best Picture winner Birdman, “the narrative starts too late in the plot.”

In other words, a plot and a narrative are not the same thing. In the 2015 Academy Awards Best Picture winner Birdman, “the narrative starts too late in the plot.” What do I mean by that?

By the time Birdman opens on the screen, the protagonist is down and out, and looking to put up a Broadway play to revive his flagging acting career. But his past is a necessary element of the plot. Later, Birdman’s screen narrative is forced into flashbacks in order to provide the exposition necessary for the audience to understand his motivation.

Is it a bad idea to let the narrative start in the middle of a plot? In a two-hour movie where 99% of the audience is captured for the duration, yes, it is. But in a novel, you may want to start with your best scene that creates intrigue for the reader. Unless you are a brand author, the reader is not committed to reading 400 pages; she is not in a movie theater.

Yet, for a story to be meaningful, we must know the state of affairs before an inciting event crystallizes the action. In Jaws, the beach is a serene place, and the shark attack disturbs the equilibrium. In Rocky, we get to know a hustler, before he gets the chance to fight for the world championship. Then the story ignites.

A plot is a sequence of events in goal-directed action. The inciting incident is the one that crystallizes the goal, whether it’s to kill the shark, or win the world championship. To make sense of the goal that serves as a spine for our story, we must get to know the character/s who have the goal. The goal must meet with opposition. The action must see-saw, and, in the end, we must have a resolution whereby the goal is either achieved or impossibly defeated. And the entire sequence must mean something, in terms of lessons of life learned.

When the plot is ready, we can make use of several narrative execution techniques—such as foreshadowing, flashbacks, paralleling, subtext in action, withholding, putting the reader ahead of the character in information, sprinkling exposition like salt and pepper, and, in terms of a novel—excellence in style, symbolism, prose, subtext in dialogue (which many novelists lack), character realism, and so on. Refer here for a discussion of some techniques in a few Best Film Oscar nominees.

But for now, we are concerned solely with plot, not narrative style or narrative techniques.

Creating a Plot

One problem for novelists and screenwriters is that there is no definitive process that leads to a romanticist plot. By romanticist, I mean a conflict-driven, purpose-driven, and fully integrated plot, not a meandering story that ends in anguish. A meaningless narrative may win you a literary award, but that’s another story.

The Plotting Paradox: SOPs v PEDs

Historically, there have been two major schools of thought:

One is the seat-of-the-pants (SOP) school. SOP adherents say we just start with a character, and take it from there. If you have abandoned work lying around, you know firsthand that SOP does not generally work. It may occasionally work but it’s a hit and miss approach. SOP output is also likely to need a lot of development editing after the first draft is written, and may well need a whole lot of rewriting. But SOP is optimal if you want to write a meandering narrative.

Development editing is rewriting the plot. It’s expensive in time and money, and it means that something went wrong the first time around. Let’s talk about the two methods that avoid the need for development editing.

One school is the plan-in-exquisite-detail (PED) school. PED can paralyze a writer before she begins writing, because it’s simply too hard to get a detailed step by step, scene by scene outline of a large body of work that is going take a year to execute and stick to it. Why? Because it’s hard to foresee everything in advance. Problems of logic not foreseen do arise. They must be dealt with rather than ignored by sticking to a flawed outline.

And by putting that pressure of perfection in planning on yourself, you will get started much later than you would have otherwise. But good PED does avoid redoing the plot.

Another difficulty in writing all scene outlines in detail before starting, is that the author knows the whole story, so his own mind can no longer surprise himself; the fun is gone, an internal “boss” will direct you to flesh out the scenes. Unlike Forrest Gump in Forrest Gump, you know what’s coming next, life is no longer like a box of chocolates.

I was a PED. I did far more thinking than writing. I still do, but now it’s more as I am writing; now I have a better paradigm. It’s neither SOP nor PED. Both SOP and PED are suboptimal. SOP plots meander if they get completed at all, PED plots may appear preordained, rigid, and predictable. No matter how long you take to get started, you will encounter issues that need reworking as you go along. It is sub-optimal to wait until every turn of the door knob is in your head. Or on paper as an outline.

The Climax-Signposted, Character-Driven Flow—A New Plotting Paradigm

Thinking backward from your climax has often been a strong way to plan your detailed outline. But one can do this without specifying every little detail. Characters are growing on the page as you write. They must have room to move. If you set the sails for Cape York (the set of events that set up the climax) and that’s where you want to go, let the ship navigator and crew have some latitude. You are the ship captain, watching, letting the crew think freely, but the final action must be bounded so that you do get to Cape York. You can intervene if you need to.

But when the character you are letting play in your head wants to take the ship off course, you say no. You are the Master and Commander, the Captain of the Ship, the God of the Story Universe.

In other words, early in your narrative, you must have a resolute protagonist who has set sail for Cape York, or gets pushed by forces toward Cape York, where the final showdown will occur and you know how it will end. But along the way, it can’t be smooth sailing at all. Other, equally purpose-driven characters must either oppose or diagonally bisect the trajectory.

But when the character you are letting play in your head wants to take the ship off course, you say no. You are the Master and Commander, the Captain of the Ship, the God of the Story Universe—your characters are fictional and you control them. Never let them take over.

The classic antagonist is the opposition. But diagonal bisection is the third force. This makes the story trajectory less predictable to the reader, e.g. in The Monuments Men, the Allies have an opposition: the Nazis. But the Russians, even though not the Allies’ direct enemy, have their own plans and can throw a spanner in their works. In Bridge of Spies, the Americans fight the Russians, but the East Germans play the diagonal third card.

Think of stories you have loved watching or reading. Are they just Hulk v Iron Man? Just two characters in conflict or a few more around them that make things more interesting?

A love story—will they or won’t they, which has two key possibilities, can be exciting. But a love triangle—who will she choose? How will she choose? How will they compete? What will the spurned lover do? That opens up more possibilities.

You can include a third or fourth card in your character mesh to spice things up, but a sixth card is one too many, and even a fifth purposeful force can make the storyline too complex unless it is a long TV serial. If a girl is choosing between five finalists, it’s a reality TV show, not a novel.

Which brings us to the Mesh, the intertwined, interlocked cast of key characters that propel the story forward toward its climax.

So when you sit down to write, you do need to plot first, but not as detailed as in the PED school. You need five simple things, and then you let the Mesh take over inside your head. Then you plot, you write, you plot, you write … about a 2,000-word chapter at a time. Or two at the most. No need to overload your brain.

The first five simple things set your North Star in the sky. What are they?

Marketing Tagline—a line of no more than ten words that entices readers/ viewers. Think of a movie poster. What do they write on that to entice you? That’s a marketing tagline. “A forbidden love draws the Mafia into fighting Radical Islam,” is what I used for my second novel.

Inner Journey—It’s always a much more interesting story if your principal character undergoes a personality change, an awakening, or a redemption of sorts, e.g. (1) In The Godfather—Michael Corleone does not wish to join the family business. He is clean. Then things happen around him. He caves in just a bit, makes just one allowance. Then he can’t stop himself. (2) In Atlas Shrugged—Hank Rearden, both psychologically and philosophically, and Dagny, philosophically, undergo an awakening to which we are privy. So does Francisco, but we are not privy to that. In The Fountainhead, so do Peter Keating and Gail Wynand, and we are privy to that. (3) The movie Flight (2012) is all about a commercial pilot’s redemptive awakening.

Stories are life situation simulators. We can learn from characters who don’t learn through the narrative, but redemptions and awakenings tug at our emotional strings. Emotions are the heart and soul of a story. When emotions are engaged, the critic in our brain takes a rest.

And life situation simulators, as one might call narratives, must throw us into jeopardy. No airline company or Air Force spends money throwing its pilots into routine fly missions on a simulator.

And life situation simulators, as one might call narratives, must throw us into jeopardy. No airline company or Air Force spends money throwing its pilots into routine fly missions on a simulator.

In fact, the challenge is in the reverse. Can you think of a story that you find insightful or memorable, in which no character underwent any change or awakening?

Think through this inner journey completely before you commence writing. It’s a spoiler so don’t advertise it.

Logline—In Hollywood, a logline is used to entice producers. In 25 words or less, you describe the whole story as “When XX happens, YY (the protagonist) tries to win back his [ ]”—XX is the inciting incident, YY is the goal. The logline has spoilers, but shouldn’t contain the final resolution. Even with producers one would use words like “tries to win back,” or “decides to hunt for the treasure”—final outcome unknown.

Outer Journey—Think of the outer journey that will flow due to the inner journey. As against the inner journey, this is all action—action, reaction, counteraction, more reaction and so on. The two journeys parallel, except that the inner journey must be finished before the climax.

Back Cover—Visualize your screenplay as a novel, and your manuscript as a published book. Would-be readers are browsing it in a (virtual or real) bookshop. What would be on the back of the paperback? Write that down. In less than 120 words. The Back Cover would normally give a few spoilers up to the half way point and throw up a lot of unanswered questions.

This is what I used (105 words) as my Back Cover guide before I started writing A Sharia London:

An affair between Marlon, a politically correct history teacher, and Jamila Khan, his young student, must be kept a secret. Jamila works covertly toward liberating women oppressed by radical Islamism.

As Marlon awakens to the dark underbelly of orthodox Islam, a turn of events leads to Marlon becoming a fugitive charged with murder. Jamila’s testimony can free him, but her eyewitness account could incur a death fatwa from the Islamic orthodoxy. Marlon won’t let her risk herself.

Hunted by Scotland Yard, and betrayed by England, Marlon must now work with the men he once loathed—his Sicilian uncles. Jamila’s life, and his, depend on it.

When you have done these five things, write down your Key Character Mesh, with opposing, diagonal, and complementary goals. And they must be as willful as your protagonist. Let them take over. Your guiding North Star is set by your Marketing tagline, Inner Journey, Logline, and Outer Journey (MILO), some of it reflected in the Back Cover description.

If you know the Inner Journey, it’s not hard to imagine that the first few scenes that catalyze the protagonist into shock and then action. But that action must cause a reaction from someone else in the Character Mesh. In your head, let the focus shift to the other forces in the Mesh, until you find the optimal conflict. Once you write these few scenes, allow the Mesh to take over. Different voices want to do things according to their defined character (don’t let them step out of character); they gnaw at you for attention. Select the best response, then write. Then think again—who else in the Mesh is most upset by this? Keep doing this, never losing sight of the North Star. Eventually you will get to Cape York.

So do the MILO, do the Back Cover, and then the Mesh plays in your head—that’s the climax-signposted, character-driven flow, like a free flowing river whose direction has been channeled.

Curing Writer’s Block

A writer’s block is often cured by sleeping on it.

A writer’s block is often cured by sleeping on it. Work on the intractable problem as you lie in bed, getting ready to sleep. You won’t always wake up with a solution. But work your mind again for another day or two, using your subconscious each night until the Eureka moment happens. If it doesn’t for a week, you may have started writing too early; you may not have enough of the plot elements in place.

You should also try to talk to the character in your Mesh who’s stuck in a really bad hole—“How’re you going to get out of this one, dude?” Your mind will talk back to you. If no one’s in a hole, your life simulation is still running routine flying. Easy. Throw someone into a hole.

Practicing the Art of Plotting

Watch more movies. Seriously. But don’t just watch them. Turn the story events in your head, always thinking of how you could have made a lesser story better, a listless story more satisfying. Most of the time, you only need to twist the ending to make stories satisfying. You can read more fiction too, but reading a novel typically takes several hours of reading spread over several days.

Give yourself some mental exercises. What if, you were asked to rip the Gail Wynand story off The Fountainhead, and make it work on its own? Now Wynand’s epiphany can’t lead to a gun at his head; the realization must come a bit earlier, and a redemptive story must take place.

Can you tinker with the poignant Birdman story to create a highly satisfying one instead? Of course you can.

In Thelma and Louise, what if Louise didn’t kill Harlan? Perhaps Harlan is part of a biker gang. Let’s say the gang is on Thelma and Louise’s tail but they don’t know it, and we do. The cops are late, as usual, and, instead of Thelma getting into bed with a freckle-faced Brad Pitt, she meets the man of her dreams just as the gang discovers where Thelma and Louise are. You know, Thelma and Louise didn’t have to end the way it did. Now you have four major players in the Character Mesh—Harlan and his motorcycle gang, Thelma, Louise, and Thelma’s new lover. Five, if you include the cops on the chase.

You know from your high-school algebra that the number of permutations increase quite dramatically with the number of variables in play. Readers can’t predict the story now, because there are too many different routes to feminist vindication, bliss, tragedy, or a twist.

None of this is easy. But it’s fun. Good luck.

This article benefited from constructive comments from Sally Driscoll, Dale Halling, and Walter Donway.

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About the Author: Vinay Kolhatkar

Vinay Kolhatkar is a freelance journalist, novelist, screenwriter, and finance professional. He is the Chief Editor of The Savvy Street. Vinay has authored a TV pilot screenplay Undercover: The Story of Jamila, and two literary thrillers A Sharia London and The Frankenstein Candidate.. He is also the co-author of Media Wars: The Battle to Shape Our Minds. More about Vinay is at the Founder page.