TheWriTeen (/S6S66NE8M)
9 July 2024
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How to Come Up With a Story Plot
1. Stick to what you like
When you’re writing a book, you spend a lot of time and energy thinking about its
characters, settings, and premise. It’s a slow process that can sometimes get
tedious if you’re a perfectionist with your art (like me). That’s why you have to make
sure you like what you’re writing about. Otherwise, you’ll give up halfway through
and feel like you’re not made for this when, in reality, you simply didn’t have the
right topic. So when you’re trying to generate a plot for your story, think about the
type of content you like to consume. Look at your favorite shows, cartoons, anime,
books, and movies and see if there are any overlaps. It could be common themes,
character archetypes, settings, or premises. The goal is to figure out what it is
about these forms of entertainment that captivate your attention. Ask yourself:
Why are these my favorites? Which of their elements speak to me and why? Once
you have your answer, put that in your story. For me, it’s friendship groups, slice of
life, superpowers, the triumph of good, inspiring female characters, sleuthing, and
quests. Some events these things can translate to:
We’re stuck in detention so we might as well become friends
Let’s go on a quest to find the guardians of the moon (?)
Infiltrating a high security building to get information about our criminal
Pooling our resources together to send our friend to another country where she’ll be safe
Being accepted to college together and going on about our lives like normal people :))
2. Create characters that make you wonder
Well-crafted characters are the foundation of every iconic story. They captivate
you in such a way that you would follow them through the most illogical plot just to
hang out with them a little longer. And that goes for both you and the reader. But
what is a well-crafted character, you ask? Well, I have an entire post on that. So
check it out. Briefly, though, a well-crafted character has a strong personality, good
internal conflict, and a satisfying arc. When you put them on the page, they know
exactly what to do. They’ll be so loud you won’t have to pry the story out of them.
They will automatically inspire you to tell their story. This character has to be
someone you’re fascinated by, someone whose story is so grand you feel like not
telling it would be a crime. Grand doesn’t have to mean something extreme like
Marvel’s End Game. But anything that makes you wonder. It can be the life of an
astronaut in space as he has an existential crisis because everything he thought he
knew was a lie. Or the secret life of a grandmother who bakes cookies for her
grandkids by day and directs a spy agency by night. If you’re fascinated by a
setting like Ancient Rome, make a character that would thrive in that environment
and live vicariously through them. Or better yet, make them a terrible match.
Maybe they’re too progressive for their time, or hate the systems that rule over
them, so they stage a coup. If you fill their lives with things that make you tick, their
story will practically write itself.
Let’s brainstorm a plot for our grandma:
Her son drops off the kids (two girls and a boy) and they bake cookies
The cookies are baking when the kids go snooping around
When grandma finds them, they’re playing with a dangerous device. She takes it away and realizes
they sent their location to the enemy.
Immediately, she packs her things, takes the kids and goes on the run. Among her things are these
really important crystals that the enemy wants to get their hands on. Why are they at her house?
That’s up to you! (lol)
Cue all the funny scenes where the kids ask questions and grandma has to tiptoe around the truth
Destination? The spy agency’s headquarters because she knows they’ll be safe there. But it gets
complicated when she realizes the enemy has surrounded her.
She takes a detour to an old friend who might be able to help. We’ll call her aunt Selma. She’s a
retired spy, living the cottage core life. So you can imagine how she reacts when grandma and the
enemy come ransacking her fields.
Together they manage to chase the enemy away but they know that’s temporary. Grandma explains
the situation while the kids are running around being chaotic because “Oh my gosh, grandma can
shoot!”
Grandma has finally convinced Selma to help (she wants revenge for her plants!) when they realize
the little boy is missing. He was kidnapped.
Now, they’ll be the ones chasing the enemy. But before they go, they need some weapons! This is
my favorite part. And, of course, the girls get their own kid weapons because that’s cute.
Grandma calls headquarters to tell them what’s going on because she’ll need back up if they’re
going on the enemy’s territory. They pull out blueprints and devise this whole plan to rescue the
boy.
They go in and split up like planned but aunt Selma gets captured and sent to the boss. It’s
grandma’s brother! He’s been jealous of grandma ever since their mom decided to let her inherit the
spy agency. So he created an evil counterpart to make her life hard. Now he does his whole speech
about world domination and blahblahblah. Aunt Selma does not care. She makes fun of him because
they used to date and she’s glad she broke things off lol.
Cut to the kids doing marvelous things. Shooting silly string in the guards’ eyes and setting traps
with gum, marbles, ropes, and slippery floors. There definitely has to be a scene where they do
gymnastics to get through those laser security things. Grandma leads them to their brother, but she
has to stay back to fight the bad guys.
She gives them the crystals and says something like “Whatever you do, don’t let them get their
hands on these.” And the doors close. Now the girls get to free their brother, using their gadgets to
open the door to his cell. They comfort him and give his own gadgets so they can all be spies
together.
They find their way out because they’re smart like that (hey, it must run in the family). They see
grandma being tied up and taken away somewhere so they help her out. Together, they go find Aunt
Selma.
When they make it to her, the brother’s still talking because he’s so full of himself and grandma is
dangling a bag full of fake crystals like “Is thai what you want?” And Aunt Selma looks at her like
“You got me out of my cottage for this?”
The brother thinks he won and demands the crystals. Grandma hands them over and on her way up
to him, she gives aunt Selma a tool to set herself free.
The brother tries to put the crystals at work but he soon realizes they’re fake. So the world doesn’t
explode. But this scene has to be like super suspenseful.
Now, cue the fighting and the good guys winning.
The brother gets taken down and everyone goes back home. This will forever be a secret between
grandma and the kids and they love it. It was a great adventure and they get to eat cookies (new
ones because the others got burnt) and live happily ever after. Unless you’re planning a sequel.
Obviously, this isn’t a serious, in-depth plot. It’s just to show you that you can have
fun with it. You can tell that the grandma’s story was inspired by other popular spy
movies (I love Spy Kids) but also it sparked from the fascinating combination of
titles she has in her life.
3. Research
As a writer, I hate researching. I understand it’s essential for the sake of
authenticity and credibility. But it’s just not how I want to spend my time. I would
much rather be writing! Still, the few times I have forced myself to dive deep into
research for my works, it’s been a fun adventure. Partly because I’m an info sponge
and because it always gave me new ideas for my books. So, if you’re having trouble
generating plot events, pick one element and dive deeper into it. For example, if
you want to write a love story set in the 60s but don’t know how that worked back
then, go find some movies and blog posts on the topic. Figure out how people liked
to spend their time, their definition of fun, and the places they might go to meet
people. Don’t forget to apply the previous tips for a story full of conflict. Maybe
she’s a rich girl, and he’s a struggling dancer. He thinks she’s a spoiled brat, and she
thinks he’s too rough around the edges. With this fun dynamic in mind, look up
some activities that a rich girl in the 60s might partake in, and same for the
struggling dancer. Then figure out where they might meet in the middle. Maybe he
got a summer job at this posh club where he and his team are supposed to teach
the rich how to dance, and the girl is there with her family (comment down below if
you know what movie inspired this). Already you can imagine the conflict that
might arise between these two and their opposing worlds. Basically, you want to let
what you find during your research inspire you.
4. Create a timeline
Hopefully, these gave you a few techniques to help you brainstorm ideas. Once you
have that, put your scenes in chronological order. Sometimes seeing them side by
side can help to get yourself unstuck. You should always aim for them to flow
naturally and make sense. You can’t have your lovebirds kiss before we’ve seen how
they met and got together. You can’t tell us who the murderer is before giving us
the clues to find her on our own. Of course, your story doesn’t have to be told in
chronological order. This is just a guide for the planning phase. So, you’ll want to
ask yourself: Based on my characters’ personalities, what could logically happen
that would lead to the next scene? Our rich girl from above, who [spoiler alert] is
not actually spoiled, gets dragged to this country club when what she really
wanted was to do a summer internship with the NY Times. In proper teenage
fashion, she wants to let her parents know that she absolutely hates being here
and would rather be on the moon (lol). So she stays in her room, reading and
writing, instead of participating in activities with them. What does that logically
lead her parents to do? Confiscate her books and writing material and sign her up
for what? Dance classes! Of course, she hates the idea. But does she have a
choice? Not unless she doesn’t want to read for the rest of her summer. And just
like that, you have a setup for a story that’s bound to keep readers turning the
page. If you need some prompts to get you going, I got you.
5. Have fun & be cruel (a little bit)
Write as if you were a child. Break all the rules. And don't be afraid of making no
sense. You can always edit later. Let your creativity go wild. Something that helps
me is turning off the wifi, opening up my docs, and just writing. It prevents me from
going online to search for unnecessary things and getting lost down a rabbit hole.
Also, it creates the same environment I was in when my creativity flowed the most
freely. And that’s when I was a kid. I used to type my stories on a broken laptop
that couldn’t connect to the wifi. I didn’t need wifi to write in my notes, so that’s
what I did, and I had a blast. My stories were always so entertaining and purposeful,
even when they needed some serious editing. The plot was on point because I was
having fun and not thinking too hard about it. I challenge you to do the same thing
if you’re struggling to generate scenes for your story. Put the standards and
distractions aside and go ham. Every time you get stuck, ask yourself: Given my
characters’ desires and fears, what’s the worst thing that could happen right now?
Then make it happen and show us how your character deals with that. Of course,
give them some moments of joy for contrast, but focus on making it tough for
them, so you always have something to write. If everything is pink and vanilla, there
is no reason for your characters to act. This immediately makes it hard for you to
come up with scenes. But if you light a fire to their behinds, they’re bound to get
up and run to avoid getting burned. And that’s when you can devise a plan to get
them out of their messes, aka write.
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