#WritersGuide

◦ Plot & Scene Development

        This may seem like a long process, but it helps. When you go through the scene a few times, adding a little more each time, you understand everything that is going on. After the second time, you get a better feel for how your character should react. This is where dialogue becomes very easy. This is just a trick I’ve picked up. It also helps to not write this in the manner you’d write the final draft. This is a kind of roadmap. You have all these different routes to take a scene and situation, and this is how you can test your ideas and view the full picture.

Plot --

        Developing plots is easy. You can be reading an article and an idea will spark in your head. You can make twists to anything. You can work a plot in so many different ways. It’s just the trip to the end is what makes writing a story so hard. You have an idea, you have what you want to happen, and you have a few good characters set up. Writing the scenes in between can be hard, but it’s important to remember that everything needs to be relevant. If your character takes a sick day from school and therefore doesn’t deal with the drama of her friends, then maybe have something happen at home or have her find a picture of her ex best friend and have her realize that maybe she really misses that person, hence coming to he conclusion of making a trip over to that ex friend's house after school and having a chat. Every chapter needs a purpose. You’re not writing a book to fill up pages. You’re writing it to take the reader on a journey from point A to point B.

         I can’t really give you tips for coming up with a plot. That’s a demon you have to conquer on your own. I can’t feed you plot ideas and yadda yadda. I can just give you tricks to molding a plot and how to work with it. 

         It’s easy to say that you need to think outside the box when coming up with a plot. It’s hard to think of something totally original and it’s even harder to write something different. I’m not telling you to think of a bizarre idea for a plot, like maybe there are aliens in space that want to form a new planet and they’re testing all kinds of weird chemicals that eventually lead to a mutant Godzilla-like creature that kills them all. That’s not what I mean at all. 

        One thing that I think writer’s hear a lot and often times ignore is that cliches are evil. Meh, that is basically true, but there are always cliches within a story. For example, how many novels have you read where romantic love isn’t involved? Love within itself is a cliche. It’s used in some way in almost every work of fiction. It’s up to the author where to draw the line between cliches and originality. Love is cliche, but give it a twist that will make the romance interesting for the reader. We’ve all read about love and evil. It’s your job to make it like nothing else we’ve ever come across.

        Think of it like business… There are hundreds of social media sites on the web. What makes Facebook different from Twitter? Why should a person use your product? What makes your product different and better than the competition? When writing, you should keep the same idea in mind. What about your story is better than the other romance novels? Maybe it’s because you worked hard to give the reader a different viewpoint on love. Maybe the love your characters have for each other is so different from any other lame romance novel out there. 

        I’m just a competitive person and I find that this helps people like me get motivated about doing something different. It may not be your cup of tea (haha get it? I used a cliched phrase in a segment about cliches…).

Making a Guide --

      With every chapter, it helps to make a guide. Don’t feel like you’re trapped by your guide whenever it’s finished. When it comes time to write the chapter, don’t feel like you have to stick with what you wrote in the guide. Get a basic idea for what you want to accomplish. It can even be a few lines to remind yourself of an idea. I like to reread the last chapter of my story and write a few ways I can continue on the next chapter.

        Here is an example from a chapter I outlined for my story "Hot Child in the City".

        1. After the fight with Danny, Jackie goes into work and makes it her mission to embarrass him in front of all their coworkers. Carrie tries to calm her down, but Jackie can’t help but admit the kiss she shared with Danny at the party as a way to make the shop turn against her, as if he’s wooing the new girl to fuck her over. Like everything is a game.

       2. After the fight with Danny, Jackie goes to Rene’s house to talk to her about everything that happened at the party. Jackie doesn’t know if she should talk to Danny or just let shit slide and focus on work at the shop. The chapter ends with Jackie going home and getting to bed, where the last line is a thought about Danny just before she falls asleep.

      So these are some tricks to working with chapters to advance your plot. You can do this for every chapter before you actually begin to write. It helps to see how the story changes from point A (the beginning) to point B (the end) on paper so that you don’t get distracted mid-novel and write yourself into a hole where writer's block is sure to eat you alive.

       I cannot help you come up with plots, that is something you have to work out on your own. I can only tell you what to do with a plot once you have the idea. You need to get everything in order and give yourself a guide to how you think you want to portray it on paper. Remember to make your plot interesting with unique characters and situations. That’s the best advice I can give you on this subject. And to stay away from those dreaded cliches.