Feed My Thoughts

Edition 2 - Part 1: Feed My Thoughts on Plot Originality

Please, for god’s sake though, make your vampires dark, satirical, demonic creatures. Imbibing this sort of personality into your vampires will make them a real character.

Of course, provided you are a prodigious writer, you could write an incredibly stereotypical plot and rely on your writing ability/audience to pull it off. Twilight, for example, is a best seller on the basis of Stephanie Meyer's ability to create the ultimate Mary-Sue (an incredibly relatable 'flawless' protagonist who is blander than broccoli) and make it appeal to an audience of thousands of female teens looking for immortal love. Personally, I don't really recommend relying on natural ability.

Again, I chose the vampire romance genre as it is an incredibly popular stereotype on Wattpad that will never die. You, of course, should try and apply this way of thinking to any genre of story you write, as every genre has its own intrinsic stereotypes.

Conflict

Conflict, conflict, conflict. What more can I say about conflict? It is the driving force in any good novel, and without conflict, all you have is a ton of words on paper. Now, by conflict, I don't mean the generic "he's an asshole, I hate him, but I'm secretly attracted to him". I have seen this type of story done successfully, but only extremely rarely.

We need the raw, gritty conflict that hooks the audience in paragraph by paragraph. Moral battles over life changing decisions are brilliant at creating empathy for the protagonist, and make the story interesting to read as well. Physical conflict, such as, for example, the protagonist's society going into a state of anarchy, or revolts against authority figures (not the generic teen angst against parents scene, though; your character can come off as ignorant and naïve). Also, if your character lives in poverty, not only will you be a deviant from the stereotypical wealthy lead character(s), but you can create a lot of conflict through the constraints on their lives by a lack of money.

Essentially more conflict will eventuate to a more individual and unique plot, as well as a generally better story.

Put it this way; imagine a 'Harry Potter' without its major conflict factor, Lord Voldemort. Good old Voldy is the driving factor of 'Harry Potter' and results in character and plot development.

Real life situations

Now, how much more original could you get than a story based on a real life event? It could be anyone — your immediate family and friends, or perhaps a story you saw on the news. Don't be afraid to address contemporary real-life issues facing today's society.

Using a real life story will also give you a definite plot, rather than the "winging it" technique, which has a tendency to eventuate to an unrealistic plot. However, this doesn't mean you should follow the story word for word. Also think about creating sub-plots to attribute your own unique touch**.

Structuring your story

Read this and remember – structure is paramount. At the very least have a beginning, middle and end, and do not change them. Your plot ending can be whatever the hell you want, but do not change it halfway through your story because your plot would have already been building up to the original ending.

And, changing your plot/characters to appease the fans is an ultimate no-no! Essentially, do not ever change your plot after you have decided upon it as it will make your story extremely unrealistic. Not all story endings are happy, and your own expression of self should not be dictated by ideals of others.

For me, I map out all significant events in every chapter. Yes, my friends, every chapter there should be at least one significant event. It could be psychological, for example, a character deciding to change their life for the better. In psychological cases, the story must centralise on their psychological changes as well as being very metaphoric and conceptual. If the change is physical, for example, a car crash, then I would focus the chapter on actions and character reactions. Each event of significance should be the focus of a chapter. Accumulate tension towards it, describe character reactions (mental and physical) and do not leave it as a sidenote to the entire chapter.