Comments | isiscolo: demystifying plot

isiscolo

demystifying plot

Sep 07, 2006 17:43

Last week it seemed that all the writers on my flist were doing that writing meme, and when it came to the question that was simply "Plot?" most people answered some variation of, "I wish I could!" (Including a few people who have written some stories I consider quite plotty!) It's odd to me that not only are most writers apparently scared of ( Read more... )

navel-gazing, thinky, writing

Comments 46

spiderine September 7 2006, 23:46:38 UTC

You rock. I just memoried this. Thanks!

isiscolo September 8 2006, 16:27:37 UTC

I hope you find it useful!

flyingcarpet September 8 2006, 00:12:53 UTC

This is great. Especially the graphics. :) I will definitely reference this again.

And thanks for the snowflake link, too!

isiscolo September 8 2006, 16:28:16 UTC

Fun with Photoshop. :-) I thought the snowflake method was cool, but I'm not nearly that organized about things.

melannen September 8 2006, 00:52:49 UTC

This was fascinating and interesting!

But mostly your plot diagrams just make me want to try to write a story plotted around the shape of one of the Pegasus 'gate symbols.

isiscolo September 8 2006, 16:28:49 UTC

Hee! Now that might be interesting - provided anyone could figure it out.

(The comment has been removed)

isiscolo September 8 2006, 16:29:02 UTC

Photoshop - it's not just for icons anymore!

angiepen September 8 2006, 06:50:38 UTC

I really like this. [stare/squint/ponder] I usually work from the conflict, and if I come up with a situation or a scene or something like that as my initial idea, my first thought is, "Who's the protagonist, what does he want, why can't he have it?" and go from there. The stepping-stones thing looks like something that'd be useful as a working model with the conflict as a foundation.

Angie

isiscolo September 8 2006, 16:33:37 UTC

I think if you're starting from the conflict you're already half there. A lot of people start from the scene and have to discover the conflict. With the conflict as foundation you can take each scene as "how does this help resolve the conflict?" OR "how does this hamper the resolution" which I think is really useful because if you discover that a scene doesn't do one or the other you can see you don't need it. A lot of long stories have deadwood scenes which don't do anything, and I suspect that's because the writer was thinking "ooh, nifty!" rather than "how does this aid or hamper the resolution of conflict?"

Thinking about what is at stake and who that's important to is part of my process in figuring out POV for a story or for each scene.

angiepen September 8 2006, 21:33:27 UTC

A lot of long stories have deadwood scenes which don't do anything, and I suspect that's because the writer was thinking "ooh, nifty!" rather than "how does this aid or hamper the resolution of conflict?"Ooooh, yeah, definitely. [headdesk] I just love trying to explain to a newbie writer why the coolest scene or paragraph or description or whatever really needs to be cut out of their story. It's so easy to think that just because something is really good it therefore needs to stay, but that'd be like if you came up with the most wonderful, yummy chocolate sauce in the world and poured it on your tuna casserole. :P ( ... )

angiepen September 8 2006, 21:45:33 UTC

Hah, forgot this bit. :D

Thinking about what is at stake and who that's important to is part of my process in figuring out POV for a story or for each scene.Another factor in assigning POV is what information I want to give the reader, or what tone I want the scene to have -- what do I want them to be feeling about what's going on ( ... )

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