Post #177 July 22 2019

“Essentials of Plot and Telling a Good Yarn”

In this post, I want to review some essentials of how I construct story plots and some of the critical elements that go into the making of a memorable story.  Most of this is Storytelling 101, but sometimes authors forget things, to their and their reader’s detriments.  Readers tend to reward poorly constructed and plotted stories with the ultimate insult…tossing the book before it’s finished.

A couple of years ago, I wrote a short story/novelette called “In Plutonian Seas.”  One of the very first things I did when constructing a story was to flesh out just what happens, in rough chronological order.  Here’s an example, from this story:

1. Commander Joe Skellen on Trident’s command deck, dozing off after studying an unrolled printed copy of an ancient sea chart, when a sonar contact alarm goes off.  It’s some kind of wreckage, dead ahead. 
2. Exploratory submersible FCS Trident (Frontier Corps Ship) is cruising Pluto’s subsurface ocean.  There is a 4-person crew and Mission Commander Joe Skellen.  There is also a small research station in orbit around Pluto, to study it and its moons.  It’s called Fort Apache by the crews stationed there.
3. While underway, Trident encounters a submerged wreck at a great depth, near Trident’s crush depth.  Investigating, Skellen and his crew find that the wreckage is a very close facsimile of their own ship, complete with dead crewmember bodies, that closely resemble the crew of a previous subsurface mission on Europa that Skellen commanded…a mission that ended in near disaster.
4. What Trident’s crew doesn’t (yet) realize is that soon after they landed and were trundling across the icy surface of Pluto’s Sputnik Planitia prior to boring through the ice and diving into the ocean, their ship and crew were ‘infested’ by nanoscale robotic devices resembling ice mist…a form of indigenous life on Pluto that has heretofore been unknown to anyone.  The only evidence of anything unusual noticed by the crew was the onset of some severe headaches right after landing…the Bugs (as they come to be called by the crew) had penetrated the lander and began their infestation. 
5. And so forth…
    
   Right away, if I follow this outline (and it goes on for two pages like this), I’ve got a setting, a main character and a problem.  In fact, I’m one author who particularly likes dropping the reader right in the middle of the action, then backing up later to explain what’s going on.
    
   The website novel-writing-help.com offers a ten step process for constructing a plot that’s worth taking a look at.  Here’s an excerpt:
    

The Beginning

Broadly speaking, the beginning of a plot concerns dumping a problem on the leading character's shoulders and making them decide to take action to solve it. Although it is a little more complicated than that, of course. It involves these three steps...

• Step 1: Start With the Status Quo. We first meet the character in their ordinary world. Nothing has happened yet.
• Step 2: And Then Something Happens. The action kicks in when the status quo is disrupted (the boy meets the girl, the airplane develops engine trouble, etc.)
• Step 3: The Character Makes a Decision to Act. Before this, there may be a period of hesitation (e.g., the retired cop doesn't want to take on the new case. But eventually, they'll commit.
  The Tricky Middle
  If the start of a plot is all about making a character take action to solve a problem, the middle deals with the action itself - or, more precisely, a whole series of mini actions.

• Step 4: The First Mini Plot. Or the first small thing the character must achieve to succeed in their overall goal. Needless to say, it goes horribly wrong and leaves them in a worse position!
• Step 5: More Mini Plots. The character keeps pushing forward and experiences small victories and small setbacks. Overall, the tension rises as they get closer to the object of their quest.
• Step 6: Rock Bottom. The middle ends at a moment of disaster, when all is seemingly lost. This is the most intense point of the novel.
  The Ending
  The ending deals with the consequences of the action. And on the basis that fiction is so much neater than real life, it is also about tidying up the loose ends and leaving the audience satisfied.

• Step 7: Reaction. The character reacts emotionally to the devastating blow they have just received and the apparent death of their dream.
• Step 8: Rebirth. But they then experience a sort of epiphany, or a realization of where they have been going wrong and what they must now do to put it right. This is the point at which the character changes.
• Step 9: Seizing the Prize. Strengthened by their epiphany, the characters go on to fight the final battle... and win. Or in a twist on this, they can decide that they no longer want what they thought they did.
   
• Step 10: The New Status Quo. The conflict is over and all is well in the jungle again. Take this opportunity to tie any loose ends and highlight what has changed between the beginning and the end.
  While I’m not in full agreement with all these points, like No. 1, where you show the main character in their ordinary setting, as a general rule, these are good practices to follow. 
  Although the above excerpt is intended for novelists, most of these steps apply to shorter stories as well.  This is good story-telling practice.
  In my own case, after I have written a basic outline, much of my plot development consists of adding details to this same outline, grouping the details into likely chapters, then re-writing the entire outline in a series of what I called Chapter and Scene Details.  Here’s an excerpt from a novel in my series Tales of the Quantum Corps, to show how a plotted chapter in my finished outline would look:
  CHAPTER 2 (March 26, 2155) UNIFORCE Hqs, the Quartier-General, Paris
              General Lamar Quint is in the middle of composing a report to UNSAC about what Sentinel has detected beyond Pluto when an apparition appears in the corner of his office.  At first, Quint thinks he is imagining this, but the apparition grows into a recognizable human form.  It’s clearly a swarm that has somehow breached UNIFORCE security screens.  That alone is cause for concern and just as Quint is about to sound the alarm, the form becomes recognizably Johnny Winger…a blast from the past.  Winger was thought to have died on Europa in 2121, during the Jovian Hammer mission.  But here is a swarm likeness, an angel, showing up 34 years later.
              The angel appears real and insists it is Johnny Winger, in fact.  But Quint is dubious, to say the least.  The angel reports that Winger is alive and well and working as a spy and saboteur inside the mother swarm of the Old Ones, to prevent the Old Ones from destroying or absorbing Earth .   The angel wants to deliver some intel on the intentions of the Old Ones in the coming months, now that the mother swarm has reached the outer solar system.  Winger describes the Prime Key and what it will mean for Earth and all life on the planet, and also describes the Old Ones’ plans to build a forward base on Mercury and a ring to intercept much of the Sun’s output to facilitate their disassembly and absorption of the solar system.  He indicates that he has some room to maneuver inside the mother swarm and that he can do things to sabotage these plans.  But the intel needs to get to UNSAC and plans should be gotten underway to equip and launch an expedition to stop these efforts.
              Quint is dubious, thinking he’s dreaming or had too much to drink, but promises the angel that he’ll pass this intel on to UNSAC.  When and how can he be in contact in the future? The Winger angel says he’ll let Quint know; he’s running a grave risk doing even this much, but he has to do what he can to stop the Old Ones.  Then, the Winger angel disperses and Quint is left wondering if any of what happened actually happened.
              He goes upstairs to UNSAC’s suite and requests a meeting with Angelika Komar, the Security Affairs Commissioner.  Quint is shown into the UNSAC suite of offices and Komar offers him a drink.  Nighttime Paris is on display outside and they step out onto a veranda, protected by the faint veil of a nanobotic barrier.  Quint describes what has just happened.  Komar is doubtful and thinks Quint has imagined the whole scenario.  She tells Quint it’s either a trap laid by elements of the Old Ones or a stress reaction to all that’s going on.  “Sign yourself into sick bay tomorrow for a checkup, Lamar,” she orders.  “We need our top staff whole and hearty for the days ahead.”
              Quint leaves.  He thinks maybe UNSAC’s right.  “I haven’t been getting enough sleep lately.  And with what Sentinel is now reporting, anybody would be spooked.”
              He resolves to do as UNSAC has suggested and returns to his quarters, intending to take something to help him sleep. 
              As this is going on, Dana Polansky has arrived at the doorsteps of the Assimilationist church to find her daughter, whom she thought was caught in a MOBnet, nowhere in sight.  She goes into the church, asks some questions, receives noncommittal and evasive answers, and comes back outside with the dawning suspicion that Jana has already gone off somewhere and been assimilated.  But how to find her?  How to find out?  Dana is frantic.  She decides to follow the recorded footage of the dronecam.  Studying this, she finds that several people from the church have collapsed the MOBnet, rescued Jana and taken her inside the church.  The church claims not to know anything about her.  But the video evidence proves otherwise.
              Furious, determined to get to the bottom of this and rescue her daughter, Dana barges back inside the church.

  
  

  Spend time on your plot.  It can be tedious and hard work but when you have a well-developed outline that follows the storytelling practices above, you’ve done more than half the work. 
  
• The next post to The Word Shed comes on July 29, 2019.
• See you then.
  Phil B.