Write Your Novel's Central Plot
When you write your novel's main plot, it is one of the biggest steps in the entire Novel Writing Process...
- Not just because a well-structured plot with no holes in it is so important - although it is.
- But writing a novel's plot to a professional standard is so time consuming. You are just not going to be able to do it in half a morning.
That's the bad news. The good news is that my 10-step plotting guide, found in the section on How to Plot a Novel, makes the job a lot less daunting.
Follow the 10 steps in order and you won't fail to come up with a gripping, watertight plot.
This is probably a good place to point out that a well-constructed plot is important whatever type of novel you plan to write. Broadly speaking:
- Genre fiction (crime novels, horror novels, and so on) places a lot of emphasis on a page-turning plot and less emphasis on well-rounded characters.
- With literary fiction, the opposite is true - you get three-dimensional characters but the plot isn't so gripping.
That's the accepted wisdom, at any rate. But in my view (and I am not alone in this), novels are better categorized not into genre and literary but into good and bad:
- Good novels have a strong plot and strong characters, whatever category they happen to fall into.
- Bad novels have a strong plot or strong characters, but not both. (And really bad novels don't have either.)
Sure, genre fiction places more emphasis on plot than character, and vice versa with literary fiction. But when you write your novel, I suggest you should give your full attention to both things.
End of sermon :-)
How do you write your novel's central plot? Like I said, my 10-Step Guide to Plotting a Novel tells you everything you need to know.
Also in the plotting section, you will find plenty of advice on other tasks you have to perform to plot a novel, such as...
- Adding Subplots to the central plot, and
- Working on some advanced elements of plot, such as Foreshadowing.
Some writing guides don't distinguish between writing a novel's main plot and then adding subplots to it. They assume, I suppose, that you will write your novel's main plot and each subplot simultaneously.
But in my experience that can only lead to confusion for the novel writing beginner.
The more advanced elements of plot, too - foreshadowing, flashbacks, exposition - are sometimes not given the attention they deserve.
One of the most important things you can do if you want to succeed as a novel writer is simply be so much better than everyone else writing novels. Do that and publishers (and the reading public) will sit up and take notice.
How can you be better than everyone else? By giving full care and attention not just to the more advanced elements of plotting a novel, but to the more advanced elements of novel writing in general.
If you are not going to write your novel to the best of your ability, you will have a tough time publishing your novel.
So stick with me here at Novel Writing Help and I will tell you everything you need to know to succeed.
"Your predecessor, a storyteller of many centuries ago, recited his stories around a fire. If he failed to arouse his listeners' anticipation and droned on, or if his audience guessed what happened next, they either fell asleep or killed him."
- Sol Stein
And that is the end of this fifth stage of the novel writing process - the stage in which you work on the story elements (theme, viewpoint, character, setting, plot) individually.
Not so long ago, you had a one-sentence novel idea. You now have a chapter-by-chapter plot outline, plus supplementary notes on characters, setting, and theme.
Oh, and not only do you know which point of view you will be using, you have a deep understanding of the theory behind that viewpoint. Most importantly, all of the story elements are working together in unison.
A word of caution, though...
The chances of the novel ending up precisely the way you envisage it at the moment are slim. As you write your novel's first draft, and then revise that draft, it will almost certainly change in small, and perhaps large, ways.
Expect this to happen. And don't get upset when it does, but be grateful. It might create more work (having to rewrite your plan to take account of whatever changes you have made), but it also means your novel is getting better, and hence more publishable.
And so it time to start to write. Well, almost...
The final thing you have to do is Combine the 5 Story Elements into a "Master Plan" ...
