CREATIVE WRITING BUILDING BLOCKS
THE FIRST BUILDING BLOCK:STRUCTURE, PLOT AND STORY
The middles of your stories need never be soggy again if you follow the advice of author and tutor Ian Ayris on using plot points to progress the line of tension in your narrative
(PART THREE)
In
the previous article on our look at the Building Block of Structure, we looked at how a Story contains a Plot within which are the obstacles or challenges a Main Character has to face in order to achieve their Goal. I referred to these obstacles or challenges as Plot Points.
We looked at the structure of a Plot Point in terms of a triangle – the bottom left corner the point where the Plot Point comes along, moving up to the summit where the situation has increased in intensity and what happens as a consequence, finally descending to the bottom right corner of the triangle where the Main Character has navigated this particular Plot Point. Note that every Plot Point must be negotiated right up until the final one. What happens on that final one is entirely up to you. Happy endings aren’t compulsory. Nor are bleak ones. The only ending that is compulsory is one that feels real, that is an inevitable result of everything that has gone before.
In this issue we are going to focus on the placement of Plot Points and how Plot Point affects the mood of the story
An old adage in this column is Do whatever you want, but know why you are doing it. Where and why you place your Plot Points in your story gives you control of the narrative. If you are just throwing Plot Points in anywhere you risk the story becoming chaotic and disjointed. If that is the way you want it to be, if that is why you are placing them there – life is a chaotic beast, after all – then do that.
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Writing Magazine April 2024
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