How to Develop Plot in Fiction

Many fiction writers start out with great first and last chapters and a few good scenes in the middle, but they have no idea how to connect them into a cohesive story. This is commonly known as the "middle muddles," and it keeps many short stories and novels from completion.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

1. Identify your conflict. Without a conflict, there is no story to tell. Two of your characters (at least) want different things and only one can get what he or she wants.
2. Think of a triangle. Your story should take the shape of a lopsided triangle. It starts on the left corner, which is your first paragraph; it progresses in a long, sloping line to the apex of the triangle, which is the climax of the story; it then falls quickly to the right corner, which is the last paragraph of your story. This will give you an idea of how many plot points you need before the climax and how many afterward.
3. Start with an unhappy main character. If your protagonist is happy, why would he or she embark on a struggle that will take him or her to the climax of the story?
4. Give the main character obstacles and encouragement. It must be difficult but not impossible to obtain the goal. Remember that other characters are terrific sources of both obstacles and encouragement.
5. Put the gun on the mantle. A writing aphorism states that if one character will shoot another at the end of a play, the audience needs to see the gun on the mantle at the beginning of the play. Fill in your story with the details needed to make the climax inevitable.
6. Make the reader nervous. Just before the climax of the story, it must seem that all is lost for the main character before some last-minute action turns things around and brings on the climax of the story.
7. Wrap things up. After the climax, make sure there are no loose ends, no unresolved plot points that would leave the reader unsatisfied.

Tips & Warnings

• When the climax of the story arrives, the reader should initially be surprised. However, leave clues about how the story would be resolved, and after some reflection, the reader should feel as if he or she should have known what was coming. (If the reader really did know how the story would end, you haven't written it well enough.)
• Most writers can benefit from reading The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler. It details how to develop characters and plot in a way that's been done for thousands of years.
• Beware of Deaus ex Machina. This term describes anything improbable or artificial that suddenly appears in order to untangle a plot. This usually angers the readers.