Creative & Culture

How To Write A Plot

In this VideoJug clip, Maggie Hamand, the author of Creative Writing for Dummies, gives important points to consider while arriving at a good plot. She recommends that a good plot has to have some amount of suspense in it to make it more interesting. This will be very useful for those who want to get some details on how to write a plot. Enlarge

How To Write A Plot

In this VideoJug clip, Maggie Hamand, the author of Creative Writing for Dummies, gives important points to consider while arriving at a good plot. She recommends that a good plot has to have some amount of suspense in it to make it more interesting. This will be very useful for those who want to get some details on how to write a plot.

A plot is all about a question and an answer. The beginning of the story is the question and the end of the story is the answer. In between the story twists and turns, making the reader think, “Yes, they are going to live and no, he is going to die”.

In a romance, it's the lovers meet. He is Mr. Right.

Oh no, he is not. The other one is Mr. Right.

Oh no, now, she has met him again. It's that constant process of twisting and turning and altering the reader's expectations that makes the story hang together. It's important to remember that you must never let go reader's attention stray from the main point of the story.

They have to be able to see all the time what is that the character wants and whether they will be able to get it. Sometimes, people worry because they think, well, this kind of story has been written before. There are only a certain number of plots.

All these plots are linked and they are all based on the character wanting something at the beginning and either getting it or not getting it at the end. It's important to think about creating suspense in the story, and you create the suspense actually by telling the reader something about what's going to happen. If the reader has absolutely no clue about what's going to happen in the story, it's like being in a motorway with fog with no sign posts.

You simply don't know where the plot is going. But of course, if you make it too obvious, there is not going to be any suspense. So, plotting is also by putting clues into narratives.

It's about gradually revealing the clues so that the reader could see bit by bit, the way the story is unfolding and they can see where the end is going to be. Remember to stop with a good beginning and a question. If you do that and you remember to answer that question at the end, you won't go wrong.

You should have a great plot. .