1. GrottyStatute74

    GrottyStatute74 Member

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    Write something about your plot, and the rest of us help you work it out

    Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by GrottyStatute74, Nov 15, 2016.

    I created a similar thread in character development. It seems to be working, so let's try it out here!

    As the title says, write something about your plot, and we'll ask you questions so you can develop it :)
     
  2. Shadowfax

    Shadowfax Contributor Contributor

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    Modern-day setting, London.

    The MC is a small-time entrepreneur on the shady end of the street; fancies himself a bit as a villain.

    He accidentally upsets a local gangster, who's out for his blood.

    He pistol-whips a guy who's been messing with his girl-friend, thinks he's killed him so dumps him in the Thames; but the guy survives and is now in hospital, seriously injured. So the police are after him.

    I think I need somebody else to be after him?

    All the MC wants is to get out from under this grief.
     
  3. Caveriver

    Caveriver Active Member

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    How it is he upsets the gangster- by almost killing the guy who was messing with his girlfriend? If this is what you meant, it seems to make sense.

    Who is the almost-killed-guy to the gangster? Nephew? Son? God-son? Previous lover?
     
  4. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    My antagonist, who may or may not be evil, wages war on the world. He thinks he's doing something good, and he does it out of his own despair. Ultimately he needs friendship, to reconnect with people, and he needs peace from his guilt of causing much pain on his family, who are all dead now (natural death). He is immortal and seeks death.

    Well now, I'm stuck on what on earth it is he wants. What does waging war achieve?

    I also need to figure out how the hell he became immortal...
     
  5. Kerilum

    Kerilum Active Member

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    Wishing death and despair upon others because of personal past events can be realistic if thoroughly organized and thought it. Perhaps his family all died one after the other, like each time he lost and gained someone, he'd lose, yet again, another.
    (I just lost a molar tooth right now)
    Anyways... with immortality, perhaps there's some superstition that has something to do with going beyond a certain point of despair that makes you a walking vengeance machine, no longer a human.
    :p
     
  6. Nicole M. Ram

    Nicole M. Ram New Member

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    I am writing my real experiences from a specific era of my life that focused on sex and drugs and rock and roll. I don't know hot to outline my writing, how to set it up, how to express it appropriately.
     
  7. Kerilum

    Kerilum Active Member

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    I've got two characters that are very important to my fantastical world, but they are very far away from each other. Narrating one of them would add and take aspects away from my story.

    How do I decide?
     
    Last edited: Nov 16, 2016
  8. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    That's the thing though - he thinks he's doing a good thing. Your idea wouldn't allow that lol. He's not a bad guy - he's just misguided.

    And yes, being immortal, he does constantly lose people, which led to his eventual apathy and loneliness.
     
  9. DeadMoon

    DeadMoon The light side of the dark side Contributor

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    My protagonist is going to be deceived or generally wronged by a group of people he thought were friends/allies. this will result in his dream not coming true and also be a a near death experience for him and, of course he will seek revenge. The friends all have their own agendas and wants in life and he will use those wants to pick them off one by one.

    I am going back and forth on if I should add elements of supernatural (like magic or back from the dead kinda thing) also not sure on what the deceit/wronged should be.
     
  10. Shadowfax

    Shadowfax Contributor Contributor

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    1/ He roughs up one of the gangster's "customers" - very mildly - and the gangster is jealous of his duty/rights to "protect" his customers.

    2/ No, the gangster and the pistol-whippee are unrelated. That's why I've got police chasing the MC for the assault and the gangster after him too as separate conflicts.
     
  11. Shabana Ditta

    Shabana Ditta New Member

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    Hi need some help with spicing up.a script i have done. Can anyone please help
     
  12. Shabana Ditta

    Shabana Ditta New Member

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    My script is about an arranged marriage that becomes an abusive relation. The young lady gets no help or support from her parents. In the end she dies. Could have as a murder or suicide. Need to have a powerful plot and script.
     
  13. Robert Musil

    Robert Musil Comparativist Contributor

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    The setting is a low-fantasy expy of early medieval Russia.

    A young prince of the ruling family is trying to grow out of his father's shadow. But he increasingly finds that the governing apparatus of the country--the ruling family itself, but also the advisers, soldiers, financiers and assorted hangers-on that support them--keep trying to shove him back into a certain mold.

    His father was denied accession to the throne on a legal technicality, and is scheming to get there somehow.

    His mother is trying to keep the household in order, and as usual, protect the menfolk from themselves.

    His best friend trains for the priesthood, and thinks it will afford him the kind of bookish, contemplative life he wants. But he discovers that the Church is really just another arena for politics, and increasingly comes into conflict with the church elders, who he comes to see as misguided, out of touch with the true meaning of scripture, and just plain stupid.

    There's a few more threads to it, but that's the gist, I guess.
     
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  14. OJB

    OJB A Mean Old Man Contributor

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    Let us start with this, the rest if just backstory we don't need.

    So there are five points you need to have figured out before you start plotting.

    Lead: A young prince of the ruling family. Perfect.

    Objective: Trying to outgrow his father's shadow. Now a story goal needs to be 2 parts, A physical objective that serves to satisfy a spiritual objective. You have the spiritual objective, 'grow out of his father's shadow.' The question you must ask yourself is how does he plan to do this? End a war? Charity? Start a war? How?

    Conflict: People trying to shove him back into a certain mold. Perfect.

    Knockout: A question you must ask yourself, What would victory look like for the hero? What would defeat look like for the hero? An example knockout would be, Will the prince end the war that tears his country apart? Or will he fall to an assignation plot by those who wish to keep the Status Que the same?

    Situation: In a single sentence, what is your character's life like at the start of the story? This is where you can put in a little bit of backstory. You have a few threads going on, I'd pick one that really drives home what your character's life is like at the start of the story.

    Hope this helps.
     
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  15. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Okay, so what happens next? You can either stay in this plotline and get involved in the intrigues and see who comes out on top OR...something else enters the mix that's totally unexpected and turns everything upside down. A plague hits the country and suddenly the young prince is bereft of parents and half of his advisors ...and he's got a plague to deal with. Or the country comes under attack from a hostile neighbour that looks like winning. Or the country is taken over by that hostile neighbour, and the young prince has to keep hope alive that his people will get their country back. He can go underground, or work openly with either rebels or the conquerors, with his own agenda in mind. His parents can either join him in the struggle or work against him.

    I'd say throw a grenade into this situation, and give the young prince a sudden crisis to deal with, while working within the background structure of his world, as you described it.
     
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  16. Robert Musil

    Robert Musil Comparativist Contributor

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    Thanks, @OJB and @jannert really great questions/comments. This exercise is really making me focus in a way I don't think I had, before. You've given me a lot to think about, many thanks.
     
  17. tonguetied

    tonguetied Contributor Contributor

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    An often used ploy is to have someone tailing the pistol-whippee to retrieve something valuable who rescues the whippee from the river only to discover that the desired object is now missing. So naturally he thinks your MC has it and having witnessed the pistol-whipping they know who to track down.
     
  18. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

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    Welcome to the site!
    What does she do at the end that leads to her or the husband killing her? Neither one of them killed her in the middle, so what did she do at the end that changed the situation?

    I believe it was either Faulkner or Forster who said:

    A story is a sequence of events, a plot is a sequence of events linked by the chain of cause-and-effect. A story is "The king died, and then the queen died," a plot is "The king died, and then the queen died of grief."
     
  19. Stained Red

    Stained Red Member

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    WARNING: Sensitive content!

    I want to start by saying that the entire book will contain sexual scenes and suggestive situations and is very much a book for adults, or young adults at the most. I just wanted to get some feedback on it. Does it sound interesting?

    In the world that I am creating humans are not the only humanoid or even centient beings. There are vampires, ogres, witches, werewolves, centaur's, minotaurs, etc. Unfortunately humans are at the "bottom of the food chain" if you will and are considered lower class citizens. Humanity's numbers are dwindling, but the biggest threat to humanity are the vampires who are the supreeme rulers over the land and how are considered the aristocrats of this world. They treat humans like cattle and property, humans are essentially just slaves both sexually and for labor purposes and are also treated as walking, unlimited blood supplies.

    The protagonist is a young girl by the name of Genevieve "Eve" who is half human/half vampire. She was a product of rape and before her mother was forced to abort her or before they just flat out killed her, as this was normal if a vampire inpregnated a human, she fled. Her mother took care of her until she was six. She had fallen ill and died from her illness. Alone, orphaned, and on the verge of death she was found by a group of mercinaries/run-away slaves/travellers (who were all human) that reluctantly took her in on the orders of their leader. She was trained to be a skilled figher and killer and treated as one of them up until her 21st birthday when the group was ambushed in the night and everyone was slaughtered. The only reason that she survived was on account of her vampiric abilties. She manages to take the attackers out, but before she kills the last vampire she asks him who they worked for. The name that was given was that of the vampire who had owned her mother and who was her father.

    Later on she finds out that he is a member of the Von Carstein bloodline, which is one of the most powerful and most influential vampiric bloodlines within the realm. Eve sets off on a quest to not only kill her father (she will not know this initially) but along the way she will make acquaintences, alliences, lovers and she will come to know herself and grow along the way while also freeing imprisioned and enslaved humans and becoming a hero within the realm.
     
    Last edited: Nov 25, 2016
  20. OJB

    OJB A Mean Old Man Contributor

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    Let's us start with this. You seem to have the ideas, you just need to organize them a bit more tightly.

    There are fives points you need to have figured out before you start plotting. You have 2 of the points figured out.

    Lead: A half vampire/half human born of rape. Perfect.

    Objective: Kill her father. Perfect (but please remember that this goal needs to serve some spiritual goal she has. Example would be the desire for revenge.)

    Conflict: What stands in the way of your MC from accomplishing this goal. (Sounds like you have a world full of monsters, so this is a route you could take.)

    Knockout: What would victory look like for your character? What would defeat look like for your character?

    Situation: This is where you describe the world of your MC at the start of the story. You could say "In a world full of monsters, ...." or you could go with something a little more personal to the MC. You have a lot of threads going on, pick the one, and only one, that really shows what your MC's world is about. Once you have a tight logline, fewer words are better, you are ready to start plotting.

    Good luck.
     
  21. Stained Red

    Stained Red Member

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    Thank you. :-D
     
  22. Safety Turtle

    Safety Turtle Senior Member

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    Okay, I'll bite, sounds like an interesting concept...and I never get tired of talking about my setting ^^

    In a dark fantasy version of 16-17th century Europe, a continent is torn apart first by a great war and then by a "plague" of insanity, paranoia, and gruesome suicides.

    The main protagonist, Ehrhart; wakes up on the side of the road, alone, confused, not knowing what's happened to the rest of the world.
    He begins to make his way home to his wife and daughter and slowly realizes that every time he dies, he wakes up again a little while later but it's taking a toll on his body, sanity, and humanity.
    On his journey home, he discovers that a large portion of the population is either dead or have been deformed into unspeakable creatures and that the "normal" people who are left may turn out to be even worse than the actual monsters waiting outside their doors.
    And when the truth of what's really happening is slowly revealed to him, he may end up wishing he could die like everyone else.


    I know it sounds sort of like a sales speech...but it's the best I can do at the moment ^^
     
  23. halisme

    halisme Contributor Contributor

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    What caused him to enter into such a state?
    Does he see it as a blessing or a curse?
    Does he have to go to Lordran or Yharnam? ;)
    Are his wife and daughter still there?
     
  24. Safety Turtle

    Safety Turtle Senior Member

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    1: No one knows and probably will never know ^^
    2: Eventually a curse.
    3: Well, he have to go to several places, Mortwood Sanitarium being one of them (though I see what you did there ;) )
    4: No, they died a while ago (spoilers!)
     
  25. Toomanypens

    Toomanypens Member

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    I could really use some help on mine

    The main character left all shes knows in a courageous attempt to be accountable for her own life. She then contemplates the meaning of not living an ordinary life and what she ought to do with her life now that she is free of the old traditions.
    What I aim to do is to take her in a political direction, where she becomes the strength of a movement that accomplishes astounding things.

    I'm trying to understand how I can go from her deciding to stand up for things to actually gaining traction.
     

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