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Need help developing plot



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Fri Jun 05, 2015 10:51 am
DamienCyfer says...



I am working on a story, and I have the start plot sort of done, but I don't know how to continue it. It is first person by the way, from the view of Callum. So far the plot goes like this: A man who is named Callum awakes beside three other men. They are lying on alters made of lapis lazuli(I think the stuff looks cool), and they are wearing light cotton clothing. They are on a beach, surrounded by a thick forest, and in the distance they can see mountains. After talking, two of the others reveal themselves to be named Conner, and Jake. Connor seams strong, and angry all the time. Jake seems to dislike fighting, so naturally the two fall out. The third does not say his name, and stays quiet. Connor gets really angry at Jake, and attacks him. Callum steps in, protecting Jake. He punches Connor, which enrages him further. Connor punches Callum in the chest, and as he charges again, Callum knocks him out with a stick. Jack kanas a piece of flint on the beach and uses it to make an axe. The three then make a platform in a tree, just as sun starts to set. They lay Connor out on it, and sleep up higher in the branches. In the night, Callum wakes to the sound of three worms, five cm thick and sixty long, sliding out of a bush, making curious clicking noises. As Callum gently taps Jake on the shoulder to wake him up, the worms start convulsing. With each pulse they grew, and to their horror, the worms grow to be at head level with them. they fight the worms, connor and lewis saving them from the last worm.

This is all I have planned so far, but I would love help continuing the plot. Any feedback is welcome. Note this is fantasy.
“To gain your own voice, you have to forget about having it heard.”
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Sat Jun 06, 2015 9:49 pm
Tenyo says...



Plotting is hard. There are a few ways you can go about it.

Think two steps ahead
That's pretty much what you've done here. You've got a succession of events but only to a certain point. That's okay if it works for you. The benefit is that you know vaguely where your story is heading and what's coming up, but you've still got plenty of room for your characters to roam and adapt. You could just start writing, and depending on how they take to your story, wait to see what your characters decide needs to happen. The downside is that sometimes it can feel like you're wandering in the dark until you figure out what it is that drives your story, especially in the beginning stages.

Overall Story Arch
This can tie in to 'two steps ahead', if you want. The idea is you keep the plan vague, but have a few markers to aim towards. It's helpful to stop you from hitting a brick wall in that you'll always have some vague idea where your characters need to be headed and what conflicts you can throw in the way. The negative is that ensuring your characters get there isn't always easy, especially if they decide mid-story that they want to change paths.

Stubborn Goals
Passion is important in characters, and ideally each one should have a passion that they are adamant about. This could be reaching a particular place, learning a skill, finding a companion, anything like that, but it has to be something they'll always strive towards. It's what you'll return to when you run out of ideas or the pace starts to slow down, simply because it's natural that when people find time on their hands the mind always wanders back to the same thoughts, whether good or bad.

There are a lot of other ways of plotting from the beginning that you could try, and you could probably google 'plotting method' and find a dozen of them. Based on the way you seem to be going so far, and that you already have some part plotted, I hope the above suggestions will be useful in pushing it further =]
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Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses.
— Ann Landers