Plotting, Always Plotting: by Devi Laskar

This is the second part of the plot blog I began yesterday. In the Book Writing World, we have been discussing plot time and again…and again! (It may sound like I’m complaining, but I’m not! I’m grateful, since it’s an important part of my book with which I’m struggling :)).

During the last mentoring class, Elizabeth had us brainstorm about the key events of our books. In fiction and memoir, these could be revelations, reversals, major conflicts.

For non-narrative books, they might also be major points to prove. The other kinds of events should work similarly in academic or advice books, though instead of characters the authors of these books may be working with conflicting ideas, scholars, arguments and differing explanations.

Let’s look at some ways you might order these key events:

*Chronological = time orders the events; this happened first, and then. . .and then. Build is especially important in this method — the tension must rise or the story will cease to engage the reader.

*Dialectic = moving back and forth between two stories, making the shift to show contradictions, actions and reactions.

*In medias res = Latin for “into the middle of affairs,” it is a narrative technique where a story begins either at the mid-point or at the conclusion, rather than at the beginning. “In some senses, all stories begin ‘in medias res,’ since you have to pick or invent some place to start,” Elizabeth noted.

*Theater in the round = where the story is coming from all sides. Another image for this would be a wagon wheel, with spokes coming from the center to the outer ring.

*Leap to the future = the story is in the present or simple past but on occasion, it jumps to a point in the distance and reveals an outcome.

*Causality = event 1 of the plot causes event 2 which causes event 3 etc. Cause and effect drive the plot forward.

*Mystery = the effect is given first and the causes must be discovered.

What plot choices are you making? And how do you think this will affect your plans for your narrative?

Devi Laskar is a founding member of the Book Writing World. She holds an MFA in creative writing from Columbia University, is a rabid Tar Heel basketball fan (who is sad right now because for her, March Madness is over already) and will be reading some of her work on April 9 at the Sacramento Poetry Center in CA.