First plot point, end of first act

Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by Justin Rocket 2, Jul 26, 2015.

  1. Justin Rocket 2

    Justin Rocket 2 Contributor Contributor

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    I believe creativity isn't gibberish. Gibberish is what you get when you ignore all the rules. Anybody can write gibberish. Creativity is keeping the rules, but using them in novel (heh) ways. That takes skill.

    Robert McKee, in his book Story, asserts that people who claim to ignore the rules are actually using rules which have been absorbed subconsciously from watching tv and reading stories. He claims that such people usually end up writing cliche.
     
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  2. Justin Rocket 2

    Justin Rocket 2 Contributor Contributor

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    James has a valid point where rules become confining. But, he endorses using rules. For example, he says
     
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  3. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Oh, you've read it! Well, he kind of answers the question you asked at the start of the thread, I reckon. Once kind of answer anyway. If memory serves me right, I think he was talking about the first chapter, not the first third of the story. But hey. I guess what I was trying to say is don't get locked into only one way to write a story or one set of rules. Check out lots of people—and keep reading lots of books you like, to get a flavour of how they work. But maybe you've already done that?
     
  4. Justin Rocket 2

    Justin Rocket 2 Contributor Contributor

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    I've skimmed it. I'm currently reading Techniques of the Selling Writer and Robert McKee's Story. Once I'm done with one of those, I'll read it. The skim makes me believe it is a good book.
     
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  5. Tesoro

    Tesoro Contributor Contributor

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    I think to some writers it is beneficial to study story structure, because it is something that doesn't come naturally to everyone. I know for myself that even though having read Lots and lots of books my entire life, the first time I sat down to write a novel it turned out a complete MESS, technically speaking.

    Maybe it was because I had never analysed the books I read, picked them down into pieces and tried to figured out how they stuck together. He**, I didn't even know the existence of story structure when I started. I've spent years studying how-to books to learn the basics and I still buy them from time to time. I've especially studied plot and structure, and I guess I can say today it's been absorbed by my writers brain and become something almost automatical when i write.

    Some writers, especially pantsers it seems(to me), seem to have story structure in their DNA. Maybe that is why they can pull off writing a novel without a plan and ending up with something that makes sense? And then there are those like me who has to learn the fundamentals of writing from external sources.

    But I think it's wrong to tell an aspiring writer to not care about these things and "just write the way it comes to you", because for some writers, realizing what we have at the end is a huge mess can discourage people to keep going. The amount of work it would take to make that pile of junk something readable seems too daunting and we don't even know where to start or what's wrong with it to begin with.
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2015
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  6. Justin Rocket 2

    Justin Rocket 2 Contributor Contributor

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    Not surprising. I've driven a car for decades and can't build one.

    Thank you.
     
  7. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    By the same token, just saying you can't do X or giving a set of "rules" with no context is also a bad idea and can be harmful to new writers. Best to understand what they are going for and try to help them achieve it rather than recast their work on your own image.
     
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  8. Justin Rocket 2

    Justin Rocket 2 Contributor Contributor

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    Or, have an open discussion with other writers as to what can be done where and why
     
  9. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Well, I totally pantsed my novel. It took me 5 years of constant writing to get it done. And THEN I started reading lots of how-to books!

    Most of the past 10+ years have been spent editing my book, and many of the changes I had to make involved structure. While I don't think I'll ever rigidly conform to any 'rule' about structure, I am a heck of a lot more aware of it now. Structural mistakes weren't the only mistakes I made, by a long shot, but working on structural issues did result in some big changes to my story. I will be so much more aware of these issues as I write my next book, that's for sure.

    Pantsing is fine, and maybe some people do instinctively know what structure to create. I had an instinctive knowledge of other kinds of things—like dialogue, character development and showing rather than telling—but I sure needed help recognising and working on structure. I ended up throwing away a lot of stuff I liked, but because it made the structure clumsy, it had to go. I rearranged chapters, combined a few, cut a LOT, pushed things along in certain places, extended others, wrote new transitional sections. I'm much happier with the structure now, but wow...it's taken quite a while to get the hang of it.

    I don't know if I'd have made fewer mistakes if I'd known all these tricks beforehand, or if I'd have been so worried about making structural mistakes that I wouldn't have been able to let the writing flow. Hard to say.

    There is something to be said for just writing what comes to you—especially the first time you attempt a serious project. Pantsing helps you discover your strengths and weaknesses. It might be better to create an organic and exciting mess, than to churn out a story that is perfect, but sterile. You can always clean up a mess, but I don't know if you can inject life into a story that feels dead. If you start out with somebody else's blueprint and stick to it, you'll never know what your own brain would have cooked up on its own.

    I'm still not sure about this. You'd think all authors' books would improve as they become more experienced writers, but that doesn't always happen. Sometimes their first book is the best. I can think of several authors who fall into this category. I don't know if they are being pushed too hard to churn out books too quickly or what. But sometimes follow-up efforts just don't have the magic the original one did. I wonder if maybe they now work to a formula, and can't find the same enthusiasm for writing they had the first time around.
     
    Last edited: Jul 28, 2015
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  10. Justin Rocket 2

    Justin Rocket 2 Contributor Contributor

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    I've been told by people who hate fight scenes that they enjoyed reading mine. It is something for which I seem to have an instinctive feel. I can make it personal (revealing the character's thoughts, emotions, etc.) while keeping a fast pace. Writing scenes is something I can do well. Often times, when I feel like the scene I'm writing sucks, I'll set it aside for weeks, then read it again and it is much better than I thought it was.
    What I absolutely suck at, though, is stringing scenes together into a plot. However, I'm enjoying and learning a lot from Robert McKee's Story about that.
     
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  11. Tesoro

    Tesoro Contributor Contributor

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    I agree with this too. Reading a lot of different approaches to writing (Like Julia Camerons vs Dwight Swain, just to give an example of the two opposites that comes to mind) can be a good way to realize there's no one right way to write, or to approach a novel. Knowing that, one can choose the way that feels most in line with our own ideas on writing and with what we want to accomplish.

    Wow, that sounds a little like me, only more! :D I wrote my first novel (it didn't take THAT long, but I wrote it) and when it dawned on me that it wasn't perfect (duh!) I started studying every book on the craft that I could get my hands on. I read Steven Kings On writing. I read Julia CAmeron and Elisabeth george. I read How-to's in my native language and in english. I read books on plot and structure and on characters and on self editing. And I loved it! :) I think in my case, my writing became better for it. I've always had plenty of ideas, and knowing how to organize them was like the first step in order to create something that made sense. of course, structure isn't the only thing a writer needs. There are so many other components to a story and I guess one has to study them all, be it in how-to books or by reading novels from successful writers.

    I don't conform strictly to the so called rules either. And I don't think anyone should. In fact I don't even look at them as rules but more like guidelines. Something that will make the mess that comes out of my head a little less messy and give it a form that make others enjoy reading it as well. But I've never felt limited by them. Or that structure would somehow kill my stories, making them dead.
    Maybe writers have to take these kind of advice more with a pinch of salt. And by all means, read these books before they start, and then keep the essence of what they've read in mind, doing their own thing with it. Or like us, pants that novel in whatever shape they like and refer back to structure later. And be prepaired to have to work a LOT on that ms wen they've finished. The ones that give up at the first notion of all the work awaiting them maybe would have given up writing sooner or later anyway? :)
     
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  12. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Yeah, it's being aware of the issue of structure that's important. I think lots of writers (myself included) started out not thinking about structure very much. We just want to get our story told, get our characters and situations fleshed out, work on creating atmosphere, suspense and all those other things that people love to absorb as they read. Trouble is, without structure, the whole thing can become an unworkable blob. Structure determines how people follow all the stuff you've created. Bingo.
     
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  13. Ryan Elder

    Ryan Elder Banned

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    you said in your thread title that your first plot point was at the end of your first act. but that seems kind of late to be getting to your first plot point, doesn't it? what else has been happening in the plot since then? how many plot points would you say are in your story overall?
     
  14. Justin Rocket 2

    Justin Rocket 2 Contributor Contributor

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    Perhaps we are defining "first plot point" differently? When I use the term "first plot point", I mean first act climax. It is the most significant turning point in the story so far. Sequences may proceed it (but sequence climaxes are never as big as Act climaxes). Subplots may proceed it (for example, in the movie Rocky, the love story between Rocky and Adrian has been up and running for some time before the main plotline, the match between Rocky and Apollo Creed (including Rocky's training for the match), even starts) (but, being subplots, their Act climaxes are never as big as the Act climaxes of the main plot). This is what it means to me. How do you define it?
     
  15. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    It's also important to note that there isn't one correct structure. Every book I've read has structure. Some structure is very much avante garde, with the author blazing new territory. Some books appear more unstructured than others, but the author is just structuring them differently. The problem with conversations relating to things like structure is that many people simply focus (again) on the generic commercial novel, as though that's the only way to structure a novel. It's empirical demonstrable that it isn't, but people fixate on it.

    There's a difference between helping a new author understand the need for some kind of structure in their novel, and telling them that structure x that is common in formulaic commercial fiction is the only structure you can use.
     
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  16. Justin Rocket 2

    Justin Rocket 2 Contributor Contributor

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    Which is why a discussion on structure should be about what can be done where and what the affect will be. For example, the reader needs to understand the significance of the Initiating Incident before it happens. To do that, they may put the Initiating Incident on a higher number page. But, they risk boring the reader before the story gets going. So, the author must include something interesting before the Initiating Incident. The author risks confusing the reader if, for example, the Initiating Incident starts a romance story, but what comes before the Initiating Incident is Seal Team Six taking out a terrorist. So, the author may want to insert a short piece at the very beginning establishing that the story is a romance story before the Seal Team Six subplot. The author might start with a man and woman talking about where their relationship is going before he goes off as a member of Seal Team Six to stop the terrorist. He gets hurt and has a disability when he returns to her. Maybe the author adds another subplot before the inciting incident just to make the Inciting Incident more meaningful in which the woman's parents died when she was seventeen or eighteen (her father from a traffic incident and her mother from ovarian cancer). She has always resented that she had to discard her dreams in life so that she could provide for her younger siblings. So, when the Inciting Incident happens, she's stuck with this man - someone else she feels she has to discard her dreams for. But, she learns to love him deeper than she ever thought possible and he learns to help her pursue her dreams.

    Neither the man nor the woman are a protagonist. Is one of them a main character? Most romance novels are written for female readers, so let's make the woman the main character. The man is the impact character. We need an overarching story with a protagonist and some sort of antagonist. Let's make the overarching story some sort of legal drama.

    From a mechanical pov, this all comes out of 1.) Delaying the Inciting Incident so as to make it more meaningful 2.) Adding a subplot or sequence before the delayed Inciting Incident so as to feign off boredom and 3.) Establishing early what kind of book this is (romance) despite an early subplot which isn't romance. That is, knowing what can be put where and what the affect will be.
     
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  17. Ryan Elder

    Ryan Elder Banned

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    that's true, I misunderstood how the 'plot point' is defined. I read how one writer wrote that most stories have 10-14 plot points and that one plot point per act is a fiction. But if it's defined as something that comes at the climax of an act, then that's it.

    In my current story, the inciting incident comes right at the opening, and the characters are introduced in it, with their backgrounds introduced afterward. But this depends on how you define inciting incident as well. But of course that's the beauty of storytelling and different stories have different reasons for how they unfold :).
     

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