1. Introduction
2. What is Plot?
3. The Importance of Structure
4. Crafting an Effective Plot
5. Writing Exercise: Plot and Structure Intro Practice
6. Conclusion
7. Writing Update

Introduction

Plot and structure are more than just the foundation for your story, they are the indicators to the readers that this story will hold up throughout their journey. Many times, those DNFs and negative reviews can be connected to a poor story structure. That’s what was missing from my book Extoria even though I felt there was a logical flow. A flow of a series of events could be considered a structure, but there is more than flow at play here.

Effective plot and structure requires certain elements that are refined and developed each year. The elements of plot include the inciting incident, the rising action, the climax, the falling action, and the resolution. These fill out your story with multiple arcs, hidden meaning, and heightened drama (in the good sense of the word.) These plot elements drive your story and your readers from page to page.

Each turn of the page tests the foundation you’ve built for your story. This is where your structure comes into play. While there are many story structures to work from, the important part is choosing the right one for you and for your story. Throughout the year, we’ll go over the different story structures in depth. If you were a follower back in my “A Year of Honing Your Craft,” 2023, then don’t worry, as I’ve learned a lot since then and these posts should help you more. With that, let’s break down the components of plot, structure, and why they’re crucial to your process.

What is Plot?

Plot, in its simplest form, is a sequence of events that drives the story forward. However, it’s more than just that. Plot is the guiding path of your story, taking readers on a winding mountain trail that requires them to jump rivers, climb boulders, and sometimes wish the characters had chosen an easier route. While the sequence of events drives the story forward, it’s not always at the same pace, and each part impacts the rest of the story.

There are five key elements to plot: Inciting Incident, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Resolution. Each of these gives a sense of wholeness to a plot, and depending on the method you’re using, these might have slightly different names. You’ll be learning about each of these elements through multiple posts this year, so we’ll keep it to a quick teaser here.

The 5 Key Elements of Plot

• Inciting Incident: The event that kicks off the story’s main conflict. For example, in “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” this is when Harry receives his letter from Hogwarts.
• Rising Action: The events that build tension and complications. In the same story, this includes Harry’s experiences at school.
• Climax: The point of highest tension and drama. This is Harry’s confrontation with Voldemort.
• Falling Action: The events that resolve the story’s central conflict. This includes the aftermath of the confrontation.
• Resolution: The final outcome and conclusion of the story. Harry returning home for the summer serves as the resolution.

Each of these components is critical to the plot structure, but they don’t carry equal weight. Depending on the story, you may spend more time on certain elements. The climax rarely occurs in the middle of the story, as it does on the list. Instead, the bulk of your content often comes from the rising action.

The Importance of Structure

Structure organizes and shapes the plot elements into a familiar story frame for readers, listeners, or viewers to experience. Plot and structure are integral to all mediums of storytelling, and when they don’t work, people notice. Structure brings the plot into focus and assures the reader that the story will hold up through the many page turns ahead.

Story structures that have been found to work and are often repeated are the three-act structure, the hero’s journey, and the dramatic arc. These have been found in stories from far in the past and in current best sellers. They not only work, but shape readers’ expectations without most readers recognizing it. There are many more story structures, and some that we’ll cover this year. As we did before, let’s hit the high notes of the three mentioned story structures.

• Three-Act Structure: The three-act structure is a common framework in storytelling, dividing a story into three parts: the first 25% (Act I), the middle 50% (Act II), and the final 25% (Act III). This structure is foundational and can be found in many other narrative structures.
• Hero’s Journey: This structure is often used for stories where the hero embarks on an adventure, faces challenges, and returns transformed. For more details, refer to future posts and Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero with a Thousand Faces.”
• Dramatic Arc: This structure aligns with the five key plot elements: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. Most stories can be mapped onto this arc.

A strong structural framework supports pacing, tension, and character development. The lack of such a framework can lead to common reader complaints, such as feeling that the book slogged on or that everything happened too fast to process. Tension is crucial in genres like thriller, suspense, and horror, but it’s equally important in science fiction, fantasy, and romance. A lack of tension often means a lack of conflict, leaving readers wondering why they’re reading the book. Character development is a whole other beast, but it’s also tied to the structure of your story, as both parts should interact and influence each other.

Crafting an Effective Plot

Crafting an effective plot can be a new challenge with each story you write. The thing is, not every book is the same; even if it’s a sequel, your readers expect a fresh yet familiar story. How can this be possible? Well, there are a few key principles for developing a compelling plot that will give you the core of each story. Beyond the basic benchmarks of the essentials of plot, these principles should help you fill in some of the gaps between those benchmarks. Once again, we’ll cover these throughout the year, but I’ll give you another teaser of what’s to come.

Key Principles for a Compelling Plot:

1. Establish a clear goal or objective for the protagonist: This may seem like a given, but it’s easy to overlook. A clear goal is essential because it gives the story direction and purpose. Without it, readers are just following someone through a series of events. In Red Rising by Pierce Brown, Darrow has a clear goal in every chapter and book. From hell-diving to infiltrating the Golds, Brown ensures his character is constantly driven into action.
2. Create obstacles and complications to heighten tension: Obstacles and complications are the fuel that tests and helps your characters grow, fall, or challenge their values. Ensuring your characters face real challenges makes the plot more engaging and prevents it from feeling like a series of events that always go in their favor. If you’ve ever needed an excuse to read space operas, they can be a great source of heightened conflict and obstacles. The Expeditionary Force series by Craig Alanson is a great lesson in setting your characters against impossible odds that heighten the tension.
3. Incorporate plot twists and surprises to subvert reader expectations: Surprising yourself often means surprising the reader. While you don’t need to include crazy plot twists, readers appreciate unexpected turns. This involves knowing your genre tropes and standard scenes, then finding ways to make them your own. It’s not easy, but it’s worth the effort. You can study Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman to learn how to incorporate plot twists and surprises for your readers. In this urban fantasy, the journey is, as Shawn Coyne puts it in Story Grid, “inevitable but surprising” in the end.
4. Ensure a satisfying resolution that pays off the story’s central conflicts: At the beginning of each story, a promise is made to the reader. Failing to deliver on these promises can lead to dissatisfaction. While you can’t please everyone, your story needs to resolve the central conflict in a way that feels fulfilling and worth the reader’s time. A great example of this is in the Keeper’s Origins Series by J.A. Andrews, where the promise that the truth is the only thing that can save them all is ultimately what saves a world on the brink of destruction.

Outlining and revising the plot is where you make your story. While it’s important to keep this in mind as you create the first draft of your plot outline, the best story will come from the changes you make once you have the complete picture. I like to see the time spent revising and rewriting the plot as compound time saved in rewriting your novel. If you take the time upfront to ensure you have as many details as possible before you enter the world you’ve created, you’ll spend less time writing, rewriting, and editing. I’ve seen this change as I’ve transitioned more to a plotting approach than pantsing, but sometimes the story shapes itself.

Writing Exercise: Plot and Structure Intro Practice

It’s time to practice what we’ve gone over today. I’ve designed this to be a 15-minute exercise, but I understand everyone works at different paces. The goal is to complete the exercise, even if you take a few sessions.

Choose a story idea you’ve been considering or a work-in-progress you’re developing. Outline the key plot elements for this story using the framework discussed in the document:

1. Inciting Incident: Identify the event or circumstance that kicks off the main conflict or journey for your protagonist. This should be a clear, pivotal moment that sets the story in motion.
2. Rising Action: Brainstorm 3-5 obstacles, complications, or challenges that your protagonist faces as they work towards their goal. Consider how these elements build tension and drive the story forward.
3. Climax: Determine the point of highest dramatic tension in your story – the moment where the protagonist’s efforts come to a head and the central conflict is resolved (or intensifies).
4. Falling Action: Outline the events that follow the climax and begin to wrap up the story’s central conflicts and character arcs.
5. Resolution: Describe how your story concludes and the final outcome or state of your protagonist and their world.

As you flesh out these plot elements, consider how you can incorporate the key principles for crafting an effective plot:

• Establish a clear goal/objective for your protagonist
• Create obstacles and complications to heighten tension
• Include plot twists or surprises to subvert reader expectations
• Ensure a satisfying resolution that pays off the central conflicts

When the 15 minutes are up, review what you’ve outlined. Identify areas that need more development or where you can strengthen the plot structure. This exercise gets you thinking critically about the core components of an effective story.

Here’s my example based off the story I shared in last weeks exercise. Once again it doesn’t have to be perfect, just get the practice in.

Inciting Incident: Antor is called to the headquarters of his company where he is asked to reclaim research that could finally give him the answers to the missing parts of his own research.

Rising Action:

Learning how to work with a team where he is the only scientist and has never spent a day out on an expedition to anywhere dangerous.

Antor must learn how to get information from others as they hold the location to the secretive lab location.

Three Suns Desert- the only desert on the world positioned perfectly to feel the head of the three suns of Talomen.

Antor must find a way into the sealed off science station and realizes he must go back for his team to get into the structure.

Climax: Antor finds the research information and the video that tells him why the research was hidden, and the science station sealed. Antor must decide if his life’s work is truly for the benefit of the world when he sees what it does to the scientists who discovered the missing piece. He must fight his conscience and the different opinions of his teammates.

Falling Action: Antor’s decision to destroy the evidence puts him in a fight for his life to escape the science station and drags a rift between his team. He and those who think it was the right thing, escape into the desert. The ones who were against him return to the headquarters and report what happens.

Resolution: Antor is forced to accept that discovery doesn’t always mean progress. He and the team who sided with him, must find their way to a new part of Talomen to survive and find a better answer to their needs.

Conclusion

Plot and structure are foundational elements of compelling storytelling. An effective plot guides readers through a sequence of events that build tension, challenge characters, and ultimately reach a satisfying resolution. Meanwhile, the story’s underlying structure organizes these plot points into a familiar framework that shapes reader expectations and pacing.

By understanding the key components of plot—inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution—as well as principles for crafting a compelling narrative, writers can strengthen the backbone of their stories.

I encourage you to experiment with different plot and structure models, from the classic three-act structure to the hero’s journey, to see how these frameworks can infuse your writing with greater purpose, drama, and forward momentum. With practice, you’ll develop an intuitive sense of how to construct a story that captivates your readers from the first page to the last.

Writing Update

I finished reading through Please Subscribe last week and started my next round of editing. First, I referenced the notes from the beta readers who have responded and made the necessary corrections/updates to help the story. Then I went through and checked for continuity issues that I noticed between scenes and chapters. Working on my story scene by scene made me miss a few moments where I repeated myself. I’m working on object continuity right now and then will probably progress to blocking.

During my work days I’m working out story outlines not related to Please Subscribe. This should make it easier for me to transition into writing my next story once I finish this round of editing and start pitching my novel. How do you approach editing? Do you like to rotate the genre/type of story you’re working on as you finish drafts?

Additional Resources

• Books
  • “The Hero with a Thousand Faces” by Joseph Campbell:
    • This book explores the Hero’s Journey and its application in storytelling.
  • “Story Grid: What Good Editors Know” by Shawn Coyne:
    • This book provides insights into story structure and how to create compelling narratives.
  • “Save the Cat! Writes a Novel” by Jessica Brody:
    • This book adapts the popular screenwriting method to novel writing, focusing on plot and structure.
  • “Red Rising” by Pierce Brown:
    • A great example of a story with a clear goal for the protagonist.
  • “Neverwhere” by Neil Gaiman:
    • An excellent example of incorporating plot twists and surprises.
  • “The Lord of the Rings” by J.R.R. Tolkien:
    • A classic example of a story with a clear goal and a well-structured plot.
• Articles
  • “How to Plot and Structure Your Novel” by Writer’s Digest:
    • An article that covers the fundamental elements of plot.
    • Link to article
  • “How to Write the Three-Act Structure” by MasterClass:
    • An article that explains the three-act structure in detail.
    • Link to article
• Tools
  • Scrivener:
    • A powerful writing software that helps with organizing and structuring your story.
  • Plottr:
    • A visual plotting tool that helps writers outline their stories.

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