Genrewonk

February 26, 2010

Plot’s one of my strong points as a writer.  That’s brought home to me when I see reviews saying that the Apotheosis Trilogy is “tightly plotted.”  To my POV that is amusing because it (and its predecessor, Hostile Takeover) are, for me at least, vast sprawling shaggy dog stories that throw in just about everything but the kitchen sink.  They’ve been the most free-form seat-of-the-pants writing of any of my stuff.

But a 300K epic sprawl of a novel segmented into three parts can still be “tightly plotted.”  Here’s how.

1. There’s one main story problem that covers the arc of the work.
2. As many subplots (additional problems) as needed, but all impact or reflect the main one.
3. Every problem brought up is resolved somehow, somewhere.
4. Every scene does one of three things: Introduces a problem.  Makes an existing problem worse.  Resolves a problem.
5. Every significant character has a role in introducing a problem,  making an existing problem worse, or resolving a problem.
6. Character’s screen-time in the story is in direct proportion to their roles defined in #5.
7. The story lasts until the main story problem is resolved, at which point it ends.

Category: Apotheosis Trilogy, writing