Photo © 2009 Jiří Děcký CC BY 2.0

I get the feeling that some critics vest too much importance in plot. They have a hundred criteria they use to disqualify a story. Is the plot original? Does it make sense? Is it too predictable? Are there any clichés? The thing is, you can create a 100% original plot that makes sense to someone and is completely unpredictable, and you can still have a crappy story. I’ve read plenty of stories that do just that. So does plot even matter?

I think it does, but perhaps not in the same way that people think of it. Plot is the series of events that connect the beginning to the ending. Every story must have a plot, and its plot must work within the story. But a great story is not just a collection of connected events. Think about it: Connected series of events happen every day. I got up this morning; I took a shower, had a cup of coffee; I checked my email, and I wrote this blog post. Yes, that could be the beginning of a plot. And who cares? Those kinds of plots happen every day. And everyday plots are boring.

Or as Holly Lisle has said, “Think of your novel as ‘A Life: The Good Parts Version.’ All the sex and violence, passion and struggle. None of the teeth-brushing.”

In my world, plot by itself doesn’t make or break a story. What makes a plot work is how it interacts with the rest of the story. Does the plot maintain and build the story’s conflicts? How do the characters affect and react to the plot? How does the plot affect the environment, the story universe? Plot is the telling of a story, not the source of it. Once you have sympathetic characters with human needs facing a compelling conflict, then you have a story. The plot comes out when you tell that story. Plot is a storytelling tool, not an end in itself.

Here are eleven things plot does for stories, to think about while planning your next one:

1. Plot focuses attention on the significant parts of the characters’ lives. The story never tells everything that the characters go through. That would be boring, because most of what happens doesn’t actually matter. Remember, “Life: The Good Parts.” So your favorite character woke up on Tuesday morning. So what? Well, she woke up an hour late, because her alarm clock didn’t go off. And it’s her first day at a new job, which she and her seven-year-old daughter were counting on. And so forth…

2. Plot focuses attention on the significant characters. Any character can be interesting, if she is central to the story that you’re telling. But just as we don’t tell everything that happens in a character’s life, we don’t delve deeply into every character. The characters who are central to the story end up being central to the plot. And if you find yourself spending a lot of time on secondary and tertiary characters, consider whether you should edit out those scenes.

3. Plot motivates characters to affect the story. The plot feeds back on itself. That is, plot events serve as activating agents, which interact with the characters’ psychology, causing them to take action (or fail to take action), which pushes the plot along.

4. Plot connects events for the reader. Plot gives flow and purpose to the story, a sense of continuity. This can make the story seem more plausible, because the reader feels that events are connected, causally or thematically, and not just random or contrived occurrences.

5. Plot starts the story with a bang. That is, conflict promises change, and the plot begins as soon as you promise the first compelling change. Ideally, you should do this in the first sentence. Grab your reader right out of the gate.

6. Plot engages in the middle of the story. Not just in the exciting beginning and satisfying end. If starting with a bang grabs your reader, what comes after drags him along. Because a compelling plot piles conflict upon conflict, change upon change. It creates tension and a desire in the reader to know what happens next. It allows you to have a “next.”

7. Plot reveals the story gradually. Since a compelling plot represents a series of changing conflicts, the story develops from beginning to end. This provides motion and direction, a sense that the story is going somewhere.

8. Plot leads to the climax. The climax is the point in the story where conflicting forces meet and promise to relieve the tension for the reader. It’s the story’s emotional high-point, the summit to which we climb while experiencing the story, the purpose for which we read it.

9. Plot draws on the reader’s emotions. We humans are storytelling creatures, and the only such creatures on Earth. (At least until the extraterrestrials get here.) When we hear stories, part of our minds actually experience the events in the story, the plot. That’s why we react to fictional stories in a similar way to how we react to real events. So plot engages the reader’s emotions in the story’s events as they happen, and thereby in the characters’ goals.

10. Plot ultimately releases the reader. An effective ending releases tension, solves a problem, satisfies a need. It’s like an emotional discharge. (Although I don’t know whether reading a story can discharge subconscious emotional expectations—that’s a different topic.) Whether this release occurs with an “Aha!” moment, by providing hope with a happy ending, or even just highlighting the depravity of humanity, the plot’s resolution gives the reader a sense of completion.

11. Plot is a memento. Even though it does not require the reader to go on reading once the satisfying end had been achieved, an effective plot can cause a reader to continue to think about the story, to continue replaying scenes in her mind and daydreaming the story’s settings. Even to want to read the story again, or to read the next in the series.

What else does plot do for a story? Leave your thoughts in a comment below.

-TimK

Photo © 2009 sylvar CC 2.0 BY

PJ Kaiser suggested—probably because I’ve been doing weekly “#FridayFlash Favorites” posts—that I write about what catches my attention in a flash story, and what turns me off.

I thought that was a pretty kewl idea, and I further decided to link to last week’s #FridayFlash stories (because they’re still fresh in my mind) in order to demonstrate each point. As it turns out, this post has grown long enough to span over two days. So I’ll go through the first 3 turn-ons (and 5 turn-offs) today, and finish up tomorrow.

(Maybe I’ll post another follow up next week, the short version, just a checklist without the explanation. That’ll be far fewer words, but you’ll probably need to read the long version to understand what I’m talking about.)

Having sifted through about 100 stories a week since I started these posts, I’m probably qualified at least to venture an opinion. On top of that, I (usually) know what I like, and (usually) know how to write what I like—which also comes with experience—so I know why I like it.

Even so, my opinions are just that: opinions. The more experience I gain as a writer and author, the more I realize that there’s no right or wrong when it comes to creative expression. (Us indie authors, that’s our rightful motto, you know.) There’s only what you like (or dislike) and what you like (or dislike) about it. So as you go down the following list of positives and negatives—especially if I linked to your story to exemplify one of the negatives—if you think I’m full of BS… well, you’re probably right.

In general, I look for pretty much the same in flash as I look for in any story. The only difference between flash and longer stories is that flash fiction is, uh, shorter. Therefore, the best flash stories respect the length and use it to effect. Other than that, I admire the same qualities in flash that excite me about short stories, novellas, novels, movies, TV episodes, graphic novels, …

1. Compelling Character Need

The most important part of any story is the characters. If you have compelling characters, you can screw up elsewhere and get away with it, because we’re willing to overlook a few inconsistencies for characters that we love.

I’ve taken this to the extreme. I’ve been known to read two-bit, mis-edited indie novels that would get laughed out of the typical snarky-agent’s office, and rate them 4 and 5 stars, simply because they have great characters who dragged me into their lives and held my interest. And isn’t that what a story is supposed to do? I’m just admitting what I like about the stories I read.

So how do you make your characters compelling? It’s not enough to give them quirks, or qualities, or descriptions. You have to give them needs. That’s what turns them into real people, because everyone has needs, and everyone tries to meet his needs. The needs we have and how we try to meet them determine what kind of creature we are. Fish have fish needs. Lizards have lizard needs. Cats have cat needs. Dogs have dog needs. And the way we as humans pursue our human needs, that’s what makes us human.

I can clearly see the needs of not only the main character but also the secondary character in my favorite story this week, Jane Travers’s “The Shades of Chawton.” And that’s the first reason I loved it. (The second through seventh reasons I loved it follow below.) If you haven’t read it, and read it from the perspective of an author, like me, who just wants to write and to make a difference through his writing… Jane’s story is worth reading. Really, it moved me.

Characters that I fail to identify with may be missing a compelling need. (Turn-off #1.) More often, I suspect, they simply fail to reveal it. Maybe they’re not pursuing it. Or more likely, the author simply isn’t focusing on that need. It’s all in how you tell the story.

Take, for example, Jen Brubacher’s #FridayFlash, “Somewhere Else.” I mention this story, because I really liked it. But it didn’t make my favorites list, because I couldn’t figure out what the character’s compelling need was, or whether she even had one. She goes on vacation, does all sorts of things that are completely out of character for her, seems lonely. I felt for her, felt like I was beginning to get to know her. But what was she seeking? And did she find it? How did she feel about going back to the daily grind of her ordinary life? It’s not enough to merely feel for her; I want to understand her. I want to identify with her.

2. Character Growth

Coincidentally, I talked about character change and Aha! moments just yesterday. In that post, I posited that characters may sometimes grow—at least in our minds—because our perception of the character changes, even if the character herself does not change.

Even so, the traditional way to evoke character growth is to actually have the character change. For example, Melissa L. Webb’s story, “May I Come In?” A boy who’s too “old” to believe in monsters and the bogeyman, he reconsiders, because his grandfather always knocks on the door to an empty room, so that the monsters can clear out before he enters. The boy adopts the tradition of his grandfather, just to be safe. At the beginning of the story, the boy was too “old” to believe in monsters. At the end, he’s not necessarily too “old” anymore. That’s the Aha! moment. That’s character change.

The opposite of character change is, of course, character stasis. (Turn-off #2.) Consider Danielle La Paglia’s post, “Reflection.” Again, I mention this story, because I really liked it. A man faces himself in a mirror, which means he must face up to what he knows to be true. Yes, the “man meets himself” thing has been done and done and overdone before. So it might be a cliché. (See under #6 below.) But I’m frequently willing to forgive a cliché, as long as there’s something else there for me to hold onto. But this story didn’t make my favorites list, because the character ends up the same as he was at the beginning. My perception of the character doesn’t even grow, so that I might more fully appreciate him or learn something from him. There’s no Aha! moment.

3. Engrossing Narrative

Many readers put this at the top. I rank it up there, but at #3, because I’m willing to forgive a little boringness in exchange for compelling characters that bring me on a journey of self-discovery. Even so, I really do enjoy engrossing narrative. Usually, you spice up your narrative through plot and conflict, and the most reliable way to achieve it line-by-line is to use MRU’s (motivation-reaction units) in a pattern I call “ping-ponging.” That’s another post, but in short, narrate your story as though it were a ping-pong game, always on the edge of your seat as each player takes position and returns the ball to the other (or fails to return the ball).

The most common question I’ve been asked since I began the #FridayFlash Favorites is, how do I read through a hundred stories in a weekend? The answer is that most of them I don’t actually read. I do look at all the stories, all 100 or more of them each week, but most of them fail to engage me with their narrative. Somewhere between the second and fifth paragraph usually, I realize that my eyes have glazed over, and I can’t remember what I read 2 seconds ago, and I finally yell at myself in frustration, “Why do I care?!” And then I skip to the next story.

“Why do I care?!” narrative is the bane of my #FridayFlash existence. (Turn-off #3.) A variation on this is “…and then…” plotting and dialogue. ‘We did FOO and then we did X and Y and Z and then someone said “Ugh. Mee boo pob geee!” and then we threw up all over each other and went home. The End.’ I feel like I’m looking in on random characters performing random acts and talking to each other in disconnected statements. An effective plot is not just activity. That’s why the characters’ motivations and reactions are so important. They imbue activity with meaning. They turn mere ping-pong volleys into a game, with sides I can root for.

An example… There are so many of them. Here’s one: “Island Nights” by Laura Eno. I’m not trying to pick on Laura, and her story may in fact have something in it worth reading, but I simply never finished it. I barely started it. I read through where he woke up from his dream while he was suntanning, but I never discovered whether they decided what to have for dinner. Instead, my brain checked out and went for a walk. Eventually, I followed.

Sometimes a story is boring because it focuses too much on the gimmick. (Turn-off #4.) Most of the “telepathic parrot” stories this past weekend failed on this count. Gimmicks are like character quirks. Quirks can serve an already strong character, but they can’t make a weak character strong. Similarly, a gimmick can serve an already engrossing story, but it won’t turn a boring story into an interesting one. For an example of how to use a gimmick well, see “Bumwattle’s Bird,” Chris Chartrand’s “telepathic parrot” story. Note that the story doesn’t actually need a telepathic parrot. Chris could have written just as strong a story using almost any plot device, such as an exotic virus or a mind-controlling computer. (Or even zombies.) He doesn’t focus on the kewlness on the gimmick; therefore, the gimmick actually works in the context of the story.

Another common barrier to engrossing dialogue is verbiage so thick, I need a machete to make sense of it. (Turn-off #5.) For example, Karen Dash’s “Death Dance,” which is possibly a good story, except that it lost me somewhere between “susurration of his cloak wafting out in his wide berthed wake” and “pert tenacity of tripping the light fantastic in life, now elided into imagining they were auditioning for the great dance-off in the sky.” I realize that Karen was playing with the language here as an art form in itself, and many people love this sort of thing. I unfortunately am not one of them.

On online friend of mine posted last month that he was getting both laughs and blank stares with a phrase that I think should go on a tee-shirt: Extirpate sesquipedalianism!

(Continued: click here for part 2.)

What drives the story is the characters. They must weigh the options and make choices. They can’t just be swept along by circumstances. This makes for wimpy characters and a boring story. That’s not to say your hero must dominate the plot. But he must make a difference. He must take the initiative in the face of opportunity, not respond to circumstances beyond his control.

The difference is noticeable. What if Zorro just waited for the situation to resolve itself, like the townsfolk are prone to? That wouldn’t be interesting at all. What if Manny Calavera just decided to do his job, not to shake up the system? He’d still be rotting in the Department of Death. What if Luke never asked out Lorelai?

So happenstance can provide the opportunity, and then only occasionally, or else it’ll seem like the writer is making it too easy for his characters. In any case, happenstance can’t provide the initiative. A great story lets the character shine by taking control over the situation and giving us someone to root for.

-TimK

Whether you do as an author, your audience will explore the possibilities. And as they explore all the options, they will sit on the edge of their seats longing to find out which one comes to pass. But I’ll get back to that in a moment.

As multiple story threads interact, the possibilities grow exponentially. Not only that, they spawn more story threads. Each event in a story may spawn or terminate a story thread, or join it to another thread. The main character causes some of these events. Others happen because of other characters or even as happenstance.

In an interactive story, your audience generates events. Usually these events are caused by the main character, but there’s no conceptual reason why they must be. The hard part in a complex interactive story is to follow all the story threads and to make sure they all end up in a satisfactory place. In any case, your audience will follow all these story threads, all these options. They’ll sit mesmerized watching the events play out. The fact that they themselves generated some of these events only enhances the experience. Give a person control, and they’ll become emotionally invested in the result. Besides, other events are out of their control, and the number of possibilities is still innumerable.