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This book includes:
- Understanding the different types of plot
- The different types of dilemma
- The secrets of keeping your readers gripped
- An easy way to create grand plot ideas
- How to turn a single plot into multiple pathways
- How your characters determine the outcome of your story
- How to give your characters conflicting goals
- The 4 essential elements of a great story
- How to calculate your story's excitement rating
- How to turn one news item into 15 different plots
- How to turn a single word into 11 different plots
- 12 ways to thicken the plot
- Understanding impossible situations
- 14 mistakes your hero might make
- Easy ways to make sure your characters change over the course
of the story
- How to borrow from history
- All about life-changing experiences
- How to make sure your story flows logically
- All about motivation
- An easy way to extend your plot
- Understanding story structure
- Advanced sub-plotting
- Twist endings – the right way to do them
- How to make your endings unguessable
- Plus how to turn one simple idea into
720 different stories
- How to avoid the internet plot scam
- And lots of easy ways to create unique plots - far too many
great ideas to list here!
Sample idea: Excitement
rating
I like to give each scene an excitement rating
on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 is a calm scene,
perhaps filling in some background details, while 10 is all
guns blazing at the climax. I
also like to plot each scene on a chart, with the scene number
along the bottom and
excitement rating up the side. I then have a chart that shows
where the exciting and less
exciting parts of my story are. There obviously needs to be some
calmer scenes between
the very exciting ones, to give the readers a rest. But several
calm scenes together will be
dull and might send them to sleep. The chart lets me spot this
problem very easily, and I
can then juggle the scenes around to get the right balance.
At the end of the story it's usual to
have several very exciting scenes together, and you
should see a gradual rise, say from 7 to 10 on the excitement
scale as the story reaches its
climax. You might then finish with a calmer scene as you wrap
up all the loose ends.
The start of the story should also have a fairly
high excitement rating to get your readers
hooked and drag them into the story. It won't be quite
as exciting as the climax, but it
needs to be much higher than a calm background scene. I'd
say a 7 or 8 on our
excitement scale would be about right, but it depends on the
story. Some stories require
and intriguing beginning rather than an exciting one. If your
story is more about intrigue
than excitement, you might like to consider using your chart
to plot the intrigue rating for
each scene as well.
A good way to draw the chart is to use a spreadsheet
on your computer - most of them
will draw the chart for you automatically, and update it if you
make any changes. Just
enter the scene numbers and excitement ratings in two columns,
highlight them using
your mouse, and click the Chart button on the toolbar. If you
don't have a spreadsheet
you can download the free OpenOffice.org office
suite; the spreadsheet that comes with
that will do the job nicely.
Rather than numbering the scenes, you could
use very short key words instead, so you
can easily tell which scene it is. Use some sort of code that
will mean something to you,
such as CRA for car crash, or ROB for bank robbery. Alternative product:
You might prefer the complete Volume
1 (The Elements of Fiction)
Includes: Characters, Description & Setting,
Dialogue, Plot, Structure, Theme
799 very clever ideas,
310 pages, £15.99
 
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