I’m assuming that most of you are aware of the five basic elements of a story –– exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, and denouement –– but are you using that to your best advantage? If you think that needing these five elements means no variety, it’s not so. Most stories don’t in fact have the traditional arch that they explain in English class; usually it’s more like a squiggly line, going up and down various heights throughout.
Example: If you were to draw the squiggly line of the Harry Potter books, it would start with five smaller humps that slant to the right (more rising action than falling) and then the sixth hump would have a larger climax (Dumbledore’s death), and the seventh and final hump would be the biggest of them all, with the Hogwarts battle being the largest climax. If you were to take a magnifying glass to the line you’d see much more smaller squiggles, to show the smaller climaxes in the story: winning quidditch matches, Fred and George’s fireworks debacle, Harry getting together with Ginny, etc.
If you’ve got the general plot of your story worked out, it can be very helpful in planning to draw out what your squiggly line looks like. See where the story will be the most intense and if you don’t want it that way, now is the time to tweak!
Warning: If your climax is at the end of the story, make sure that you have a proper denouement. If it’s rushed and quickly explains everything, the reader will feel rushed, and they won’t like it (a rushed ending is one of the most common complaints one hears about Mockingjay, for example). We do not want to be told what happened after the bomb went off, we want to be shown –– take a final chapter to do that.
Specific Exercise: General Map of a Story
Take a blank piece of paper and draw on it four or five separate story maps. The first should be simple, with only one climax, and they can get progressively more squiggly (bumps should be different heights) after that. Then give yourself the task of coming up with a short story to go with the first line. Once you’ve established to yourself the five points of the story, move on to the next line and add in details to fit the extra humps. Keep doing this by getting more and more detailed until you’re on the fifth plot –– see how complicated it is?
Your story’s plot line should be like this. The first line is the bare boned structure, but as you delve deeper and deeper, there are more and more little things that are happening. Having smaller things like this takes away from the intensity of your plot and gives the reader a break. (Be careful not to have too many though –– you’ll confuse the reader. One or two medium-sized subplots should do, with all the little details under that.)
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Writing Mistakes You're Making
De TodoA self-help book for beginning writers, covering everything from grammar to plot with a dash of humor to keep you interested and learning! (The best part? Anything you already know, you can just skip over.)
