Are you wondering how to write an interesting plot for your story? In this article, we look at this very topic.
Take a read of the 5 top tips below!
1. Give your protagonist obstacles to overcome.
How it helps.
A good plot has ups and downs. If there is only one main conflict to resolve, then the story becomes too much like an express freight train: everything is heading in one direction with only one possible ending. Stories with hurdles that divert or halt the protagonist occasionally keep the tension high and the reader guessing. This also keeps the reader engaged enough to keep reading in order to see if and how the protagonist will overcome those hurdles in the end.
How to include it.
During the planning stage, include at least two or three obstacles prior to the main climax. At least one of them should be a surprise twist that makes the protagonist reconsider how they approach resolving the main conflict. For example, in Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spiderman discovers the villain he’s been fighting is his love interest’s father. This changes his whole approach to fighting Vulture as he doesn’t want to negatively impact Vulture’s family.
Another obstacle could be having the antagonist ‘win’ an early confrontation, leaving the reader to wonder if or how the protagonist will escape. For example, in Star Wars: A New Hope, Luke, Leia, Han and Chewbacca get trapped in a slowly closing trash compactor with a dangerous trash-eating serpent. After defeating the serpent, the scene lets them get dangerously close to being crushed, only to be saved at the last minute by C3PO.
2. Give your character a complicated or dramatic history.
How it helps.
No engaging protagonist is totally good, and no engaging antagonist is totally evil. Those characters that seem the most realistic and the most interesting are those who have traumatic or problematic histories. Readers love complicated characters because they remind readers of themselves.
It’s the idea of Superman versus Batman. Superman is the true good alien God who does things because it’s the ‘right thing to do.’ While many people do like Superman, there are an equal number of people who like Batman, the rich boy with fancy toys, simply because he took the trauma and pain of parents’ murders and did something good with it. Batman’s history allows readers to live out their revenge fantasies, to some extent.
How to include it.
Make the protagonist flawed and use those flaws early on in the story as motivators for their desire to resolve the main conflict. If writing a detective fiction story, for example, explain the detective’s fixation on this case by relating it a traumatic previous case they worked on. If writing a ‘return home’ romance story, give the protagonist a dark reason for leaving their hometown in the first place; this would add a sense of hesitation and uncertainty as to whether they will pursue their found love or escape all over again.
Or explain that the villain does bad things for good reasons. In Spiderman 3 (2012), Sandman robs banks and accidentally killed Uncle Ben because he needed money to pay for his daughter’s medical bills. The reader ends up sympathizing with the villain while still rooting for the protagonist at the same time, causing conflict within the reader about who they hope will prevail in the end.
3. Put the story under pressure.
How it helps.
A ticking clock raises the stakes no matter the situation. The faster the clock, the higher the stakes, the more engaged the reader will be. Readers read with the pace of the story, so if the story’s time pressure is more like a time bomb, then the reader will be on the edge of their seat the whole time. Making the story time dependent in some way gets the reader to feel the same pressure the characters do.
How to include it.
Give the story a time limit, even some of the more minor scenes. Have a character taking an exam? Make it timed so they sweat over getting the correct answers down fast enough. Is there a serial killer that needs to be stopped? Providing a time frame between the previous murders makes solving the investigation that much more important to the detectives. Has the protagonist returned to their hometown for some reason and fallen in love? Make their visit only last for a week (two at most) so the end is always present.
4. Keep the character moving.
How it helps.
There are some really good one-act plays and films that take place in the same room, but even in those single scene stories, the character isn’t just sitting in the same pace. Action needs to go somewhere, both emotionally and physically. Forcing the protagonist to move in order to follow the action keeps the reader wondering why this new environment is so important to the story. What will unfold here that couldn’t unfold in the previous setting?
How to include it.
When plotting out the important events of the story, try to vary where those events take place, even if they stay in the same city or house. The settings themselves don’t necessarily have to be important or necessary to the overall plot. Just change the protagonist’s environment occasionally so the reader isn’t stuck in the same place all the time.
5. Use other characters to add tension.
How it helps.
“No man is an island,” said John Donne, and that is just as true for a story as anything else. While stories generally have one major protagonist and antagonist, the more interesting stories often have minor antagonists with varying levels of impact on the story or protagonist. Captain America isn’t just battling Hydra; he also battles the Winter Soldier, Tony Stark, social pressures, his own isolation.
Even relatively minor antagonists add tension and depth to the story. For example, the detective who has young children at home that require some of the care and attention they’d rather be devoting to solving the case at hand. Will the detective sacrifice their family to stop the criminal from hurting another family?
How to include it.
Consider the protagonist’s backstory and the obstacles you’ve plotted on the way to resolving the main conflict: do you need other characters to create those obstacles? Can you make them relevant to both the character’s background and their progress? Where can you add a minor character here and there to add depth to the protagonist’s (or even the antagonist’s) journey to resolving the story’s main conflict?
Enjoyed this article? You might also like the following:
How to Write Unexpected Plot Twists
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