Advice on getting a plot line

u/Tiberius74205 avatar
Tiberius74205
3h
Great advice. Know your ending and work towards the beginning from there.

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Let's say your character has to recover the stolen plans so the bad guys won't win. You come up with the ending - say, your hero escaping from the mountaintop chalet in a helicopter just before the bomb he planted explodes. That can be your last chapter, the hero's dramatic escape.

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So, how do you get there? Come up with a way for the hero to get to the chalet that will be difficult. Now you've got your last two chapters.

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How did the hero know to go the the chalet? Maybe there was someone from the bad guys who decided to switch teams. They told the good guys, but the bad guys were able to kill them before they said everything. So the good guys had to figure things out. There's a few chapters there, a secret meeting, a murder, the hero believing the defector but the others don't, so the hero has to find the evidence to prove it...

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Just keep going like that.

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u/Bukabel avatar
Bukabel
13m
Wow you got me interested into the story right away! 😮 Gj! 👏

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u/flubbergrubbery avatar
flubbergrubbery
20m
Bruh you almost came up with a new story just for this comment. I would definitely read it if you develop it

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u/YouAreMyLuckyStar2 avatar
YouAreMyLuckyStar2
3h
Larry Brooks has a chapter on concept in "Story engineering", it explains how the pieces of your story are supposed to fit together. If you Google "premise" you'll find some articles discussing the same topic. There are several methods and philosiphies so make sure to find the one that makes sense to you. It's a method to organize things, not hard and fast rules.

The basic one I use is conflict + character + setting = premise. The premise defines the nature of the protagonists journey. It poses the famous "What if?" question.

Premise + theme + structure = plot. The theme, defined by Larry Brooks as the real world lesson the story teaches, together with the premise and the dramatic structure defines the plot.

The premise should always have an irony, the protagonists situation should be completely turned on it's head when the story kicks of and stir the imagination if the reader.

Boy with supernatural abilities is kidnapped (conflict) + Bookworm older sister follows him (character) + enters gunslingers tournamnet in outer space to get him back (setting) = What if there was a tournament in outer space where the prices were people with supernatuaral abilities, and a girl had to enter to get her brother back? (premise.) It's not a good premise, but it's the best I can do in five minutes.

This isn't situational irony, just an extreme change for the protagonist, but irony is kind of hard to come up with and I can't think if one right now. If you have trouble making the story come together, see if you can fix it by making a change here.

The theme defines a lot of the plot. If the story teaches the importance of self-reliance the plot is going ot be very different than if it teaches the value of friendship.

Anti-social junior NRA member enters gunfighter tournament in space to rescue younger brother with superpowers. (premise) + the impo