Plot Rule One
Sep. 29th, 2005 12:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
clarentinePlot, Rule One: make sure the opening conflict, the point from which your story begins, relates directly to the rest of your plot.
That is all.
::smacks self upside head::
Amongst the online discussions of Alfred Noyes' poem The Highwayman, there is one that ponders why Loreena McKennitt's [excellent, truly excellent] version omits verses that make it clear how the authorities learned about the bandit's plans to steal the gold and where to find him. This, it occurs to me, is a valid plot quibble.
And it's what was wrong with the opening for what I've been referring to, variously, as the pirate story, Josh's story, and the Highwayman story. I got two scenes down on paper, and stalled. Why? Because I didn't know what happened next.
Because it wasn't connected to what the story was about.
If, however, I make the attack that occurs in the first scene happen as a direct result of the conflict Josh faces through the rest of the book, then I suddenly know (a) the much less generalized location of the opening scenes, (b) the motive of the men participating in that first attack, (c) the motive of the men participating in the second attack, and (d) what happens next.
Color me pleased.
That is all.
::smacks self upside head::
Amongst the online discussions of Alfred Noyes' poem The Highwayman, there is one that ponders why Loreena McKennitt's [excellent, truly excellent] version omits verses that make it clear how the authorities learned about the bandit's plans to steal the gold and where to find him. This, it occurs to me, is a valid plot quibble.
And it's what was wrong with the opening for what I've been referring to, variously, as the pirate story, Josh's story, and the Highwayman story. I got two scenes down on paper, and stalled. Why? Because I didn't know what happened next.
Because it wasn't connected to what the story was about.
If, however, I make the attack that occurs in the first scene happen as a direct result of the conflict Josh faces through the rest of the book, then I suddenly know (a) the much less generalized location of the opening scenes, (b) the motive of the men participating in that first attack, (c) the motive of the men participating in the second attack, and (d) what happens next.
Color me pleased.
