Plot is what drives a book.
It’s the hook that brings a reader into a book.
A plot has to be a mystery to a potential reader.
It has to be a promise of something great that will unfold.
So the plot is really what happens. And if you want to have a coherent novel,
you have to have a lot of things that happen and keep it escalating.
It’s always getting bigger, more important,
more interesting to the reader.
I love Snyder’s Save the Cat. He has a very easy way to develop a plot.
Thirteen key points.
And once you know all those thirteen, you can do the rest.
A plot that really works is a plot that makes you feel. And you remember it.
You remember those character moments. And that only comes from directly tying
the plot into the characters and what’s happening with them.
So if somebody is cowardly, what plot would bring out the journey
to bravery in them.
So they would have to make a choice that is the brave choice at the end,
but they need the circumstances leading up to it to cause them to make that choice.
Everything that we do as human beings is as the result of a decision
that we’re making, of a feeling that we’re having,
of a fear that we’re having. And that propels us into action.
And so you have characters that are being propelled
into action because of their inner lives. And then, lo and behold, you have plot.
Plot is the structure of revelation. And the structure of revelation is…
when you reveal what about the story.
You meet the woman and then you meet Pitt.
And then you get drunk.
You know, and when you do that, you express yourself in ways
that you wish you hadn’t. But are still true.
It’s those moments that you decide to tell the audience, the reader,
what they need to know to have the most profound emotional reaction.
But also to let them move forward in the story
that’s in some way comfortable for them.
Ah, so, you know, plot and story are very different things.
But they’re wed.