Plot: The Structure

Episode 023

Welcome back to the last lesson on plot.

Once you’ve got your major dramatical question there needs to be a structure to support it and it might sound simple, but sometimes it gets lost with everything that is going on.  Every plot has a beginning, middle and ending. Plot and structure are inseparable. You can’t have one without the other. 

The main plot points of today’s lesson:

•  The beginning has three key points
  • It has to drop your reader into the middle of the action.
  • It has to provide all of the background information to get the reader up to speed.
  • And it has to establish your major dramatic question. 
• With starting in the middle of the action, you need to make sure that your readers can get enough of what is going on and why .
• The key to really getting enough through is to give what the reader needs at the time, they don’t need to know more than what is necessary so that it doesn’t take away from the story. 
• The middle of a story will have some overlap with the beginning, it’s natural but they are both very different part of the story.
• In the middle of the book you are further developing the relationship your reader has to your characters.
• The conflict that happens here needs to keep building and building until it can’t no more. 
• A key aspect here is to make sure that you’re showing the climax of the story and not just telling your reader what happens.
• The End is the part of plot will be the shortest part of your piece. 
• It tends to be the part that wraps up the story, nicely and in a bow. 
• The end follows a pattern which I like to think of the three c’s: there’s the crisis, climax and the consequences.
• Your ending should feel inevitable but unexpected. You don’t want your reader to have guess what is going to happen before you get there. 
• Subplots serve as a lesser parallel to the main plot and in other cases a subplot can also be in contrast with the main plot point .

Plot and character are inseparable here. It’s all about your character’s journey and their ability to work through it, so you need to make sure that your characters are strong, fully formed and three-dimensional to withstand the plot drama that is thrown their way. 

Tell me what did you take away from this week’s lesson?

I’d love to know.

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