In this issue we explore the plot of a story and how to maximise your points in that department. In the guidance tab on your judging documents you can find a number of things that judges are looking at when marking your plot:

1. Structure
2. Resolution Vs Open Ending
3. Does it make sense
4. Story-telling techniques
5. Balance: Exposition Vs Action
6. The idea

We look at three of those topics here. You will learn about the Do’s and Don’ts, as well as the many ways to use these three areas to improve your story. We also highlight why each of these aspects of your plot are important to your writing as a whole, not just important to competitions. 

Structure

• Structure helps you to stay on track and focused on the main aspects of your plot. This is particularly important in competition writing as you have a limited word count to get an idea across. 
• Good structure stops a story from going off on a tangent and will make the story easier to follow for a reader. 
• Structure is also important for those writing a more complex storyline, even when you don’t want your reader to understand everything right away. 

The basic structure of any story should be: Beginning, Middle, End. You can add more structure within the story, particularly in that ‘Middle’ section, but it is important that all stories follow this to a lesser or greater degree. 

Beginning

• This is where you set the readers’ expectations of your story. You may also make promises to the reader in this section. 
• In the beginning of any story you will find:
  • Introduction to your world and its main characters
  • Introduction to the genre and themes; is this a romantic story, an adventure? This is important as your reader will decide during this part of the story if it’s something they want to commit to. 
  • You may or may not make promises here. In a romantic story, while there is conflict, there is likely to be a couple that your reader wants to get together. 

Middle

• This is the part of the story where all the action takes place. 
• This part of the story requires:
  • Tension – While you have likely made promises to the reader in the introduction, this is where that could be in danger. Without tension, there is nothing to keep the reader reading. Take a look at any successful novel; things happen that the reader doesn’t like, and this drives you to read on for your hero, be that a romantic hero or an adventure hero. 
  • Conflict – There needs to be something for your hero to overcome. It is part of what gives tension. This is someone or something that opposes you hero and they will have to fight them to achieve their goal e.g. Secrets that prevent Harry from knowing what Fluffy is guarding, Snape, the obstacles to get to the stone, etc. 
  • Conflict and Tension do not need to be life threatening; it’s an obstacle for your character to overcome:
    • Character vs Self
    • Character vs Opposing Character
    • Character vs Environment 
    • Character vs Society 

End

• This is where you need to fulfil your promises — or break them! Your story needs some sort of resolution, even if you are leaving it ‘open-ended’.
  • Fulfilling promises means the couple gets together, the hero achieves his goal. You are giving your readers a satisfying and happy ending. 
  • Breaking promises is another option. This would be a story that does not have a happy ending and is typically found in a tragedy. 
  • Resolution – The story needs to come to a close and leave the reader knowing that this is the end. Even when something is left with an ‘open-ending’, you cannot leave the reader feeling that they are missing that final paragraph or chapter. 

Resolution Vs Open-ending

When planning what kind of ending that you want for a story, you need to consider the story you are telling and what will be most satisfying for your readers. Some stories will really lend themselves to an open-ending, leaving the readers with all main plot concerns resolved, but still hungry for more. 

A good example of this is Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. By the end of the story, the issues within that story’s main plot are very resolved. We know Snape didn’t try to kill Harry, we know the Philosopher’s Stone has been destroyed, that our friends are okay, and even how Harry survived the night his parents were killed. We even know that Nicolas Flamel and his wife have enough elixir to set all affairs in order. This story, however, is still open-ended. We are left with one simple fact; ‘there are ways that Voldemort can come back.’ 

This is a good option if you want to give the reader the hint that there will be something more. You have resolved the ‘pressing’ concerns and leave just enough to get them to ‘tune in next time’. 

Some stories, however, do not fit this way of ending a story. There are many novels out there that are very much stand-alone, and the reader is not expecting a sequel at all. These stories would not satisfy the readers had all the questions not been answered. This is something to think about. When you are leaving something ‘unresolved’ is it something that will irk the reader, or is it something that will inspire another story? 

Does it make sense

Structure, as I have mentioned, can stop you from going off on tangents, and this is often going to help you have a clear storyline that makes sense to any reader. This is very important, because the reader will not be satisfied if, at the end, they are clueless. 

1. Have your main idea clearly thought out and stick to it.
2. Make sure that you highlight — for yourself — all the facts that you need to include.
3. When explaining a more complex idea in a story, use simple, clear language. 
4. If you have an “expert” character using jargon, ensure you have that explained for other characters, and therefore your reader. 
   1. Remember, make this natural, for example, a professional explaining something in layman’s terms for another character. Otherwise it can come across as an ‘info-dump’. This also comes under Action vs Exposition, and getting the balance just right.
5. Read the ending of your story on its own, or get someone else to read it. Is it clear that all your questions are answered or acknowledged here?

HANDY HINTS TO GET YOU POINTS

In our points guidance for plot we mention the use of storytelling techniques. These techniques are designed to help your plot be more intriguing, amplify the tension, and show off your plot. These techniques are designed specifically to engage your readers, and, depending on the kind of story that you’re writing, keep them on the edge of their seat. 

There are a lot of techniques out there, so please don’t limit yourself to the few that we have covered. If you know some really good techniques, we would love to hear them; please add them to a comment below. In this article, I will go in depth into three techniques and then give you a brief overview of a few other storytelling techniques. 

The Mountain

The Mountain is a structure that builds tension within a story continuously until you reach the climax. It’s similar to ‘The Hero’s Journey’ which also relies on building tension. One of the main differences is that in ‘The Mountain’ things don’t have to end well for the hero. For this reason the prequel trilogy for Star Wars is a good example. Anakin Skywalker is the hero and in the climax he turns to the dark side, is defeated and left for dead. 

This structure should help you to map out the drama and tension in your story. It will help with your pace and flow as you build up layers of tension. Like climbing a mountain, it will go in gradients, the conflicts gradually getting more difficult or have higher stakes. A great way we can see this progression on a larger, more obvious scale, is the Harry Potter series.

The Mountain is one of my favourite techniques to read because it relies on conflict in the story, and for me, conflict is one thing that always keeps me reading. This technique really leans into that and it’s a fantastic tool if you want to grip a reader. 

Basic structure:

Opening – 

• Introducing your world, characters, heroes and villains, and you will have smaller conflicts. 
• ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone’ does this well, you get to know the world, the characters, and the idea of Lord Voldemort is gently introduced.

Middle – 

• The stakes are getting higher! In ‘The Chamber of Secrets’, you can see the stakes jump a little, but not much. This is because for this technique, you want to progress a little at a time.
• If you skip to ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’, Harry is outside of Hogwarts fighting for the first time. There are lives online, and the main purpose for the hero is becoming much clearer. 
• ‘The Half-Blood Prince’ then really ups the ante on conflict. This is where things are getting far more, especially with the death of someone we feel should be untouchable; Professor Dumbledore. As he is considered to be the only one that Voldemort was afraid of, and he’s now gone, this changes the tone completely. 
• You are also enlightened as to what that final conflict will be and it’s the biggest conflict you can imagine them facing; destroying the Horcruxes.

Climax – 

• Your story comes to its conclusion. 
• Throughout this story the trio are fighting this final obstacle, and each horcrux is increasingly difficult to find and destroy. 
• The climax includes a twist that leans into this technique, because this doesn’t require a happy ending. We learn that Harry will have to die. 
• Everything is resolved in a final battle where everyone’s lives are on the line and as the stakes are at their highest, so is the death toll. 
• Taking a look at other series’ though, things don’t necessarily have to end well for the Hero or Heroine. The Deathly Hallows has a lot of loss, but overall has a positive climax. Other series can end with a hero’s demise.

Nested Loops

This technique is great if you want to have a more complex storyline or add a number of layers to a story. The focus of the technique is having numerous narratives layered on top of each other. This can add tension for a reader, without there being a great deal of conflict in the story. This is because you get the story piece by piece, and tend to understand the whole, only at the end.

At the centre of these kinds of stories, there will usually be a core message, and this will bring all those narratives together. You have a lot of layers, but the central or core message unifies those narratives into one story. That core message can be anything. A great way of explaining this is the Matryoshka Doll, or Russian Nesting Dolls. 

Imagine each doll being a narrative within the story, but that center doll is whole, and when your reader reaches this point, they should understand everything, and your core message or meaning is understood. 

False Start

This technique is very interesting because you will start with a story that your reader feels they know. It will be almost predictable, maybe it follows a common trope or typical story type, like the Romantic Comedy. 

This technique will then disrupt that sense of security you had in the story. It inserts an unexpected storyline, hurdle or disruption, setting your character back to where they need to ‘start again’, hence the name. 

In our blog we have a great example of this through a speech J.K. Rowling gave at Harvard University. This speech begins with her academic achievements, and the natural progression that the audience expected was her success in writing Harry Potter. Instead it focuses on when her life was derailed and she struggled to get by at all. The speech then builds up and shows her struggles until she did achieve everything that we know she achieved. 

This use of conflict is great, because your reader is invested in the character and is still longing for things to work out the way that they expected. This technique will follow the character to where their situation is resolved, or they have moved past the conflict that was in their way. It usually has a very positive resolution. 

Techniques

1. Monomyth – Also known as ‘The Hero’s Journey’. This has a circular plot structure, example: The Hobbit
2. In Medias Res – Starting in the heat of the action, then going back to the beginning, example: How To Get Away With Murder
3. Converging Ideas – Different strands of thinking coming together to form one cohesive whole, example: NCIS 
4. Petal structure – Multiple stories around one concept, example: Love Actually.