Winging It: A Falcon's Thoughts On Discovery Writing

2: How to keep your plot from falling apart

I'm well aware of one of the major potential pitfalls of "winging it" when it comes to your plot. You as a writer can get stuck, lost, or meander way out of what was promised in the premise. You can start out promising a journey to follow a young man's quest to knighthood, only to get caught up in the hijinks of his romantic adventures and have him end the book happily married, but with that stuffy suit of armor all forgotten.

Well, I'm here to help, because believe me, I know what it's like to get stuck. We may be discovery writers, and we may love flying by the seat of our pants, but that doesn't mean we can't have a little structure, right? Just enough to get by, but not enough to stifle our creativity.

I have two or three plot points that I always keep in mind even when exploring the unknown depths of my unplanned adventure, and I'll get to that in a moment. But first, I have a question.

Actually, you need to ask the question to yourself. What is the quest in your book? Is it to make a journey to rescue a princess? Is it to discover who's been murdering all the falcons in the Northwestern Province? Or is it to get that adorable girl/boy your MC's crushing on? Whatever the case is, deciding what the quest is will be key to keeping some structure while maintaining spontaneity.

Say your book is about rescuing the princess. You still have PLENTY of room to be creative about HOW they do it, who dies along the way 🙊, what enemies and obstacles they'll face, etc. But keeping that core in mind will help you stay focused, and it'll keep your subplots just that. SUBplots. 😉

Now, what're the plot points I mentioned? Simple. I almost always have my midpoint and climax in mind way ahead of time, even if in very rough form. Usually, I'll have my "call to adventure" in my brain early on too, though not always.

So, I'm discovering that my conception of the midpoint differs somewhat from other authors, but I'd argue if it works, it works. No reader really cares if one plot beat functions just like its match from the last book they read, so long as it moves the story in a new direction that keeps things fresh and entertaining. Again, one of our advantages as discovery writers is the refreshing approaches we can create that keep things from being stale.

ANYHOW, in my mind, the midpoint is the moment where your protagonist's flaw really bites them in the butt. And I mean it tears a chunk out and leaves them unable to sit for quite a few days. They act from their flawed mode of operation, and everything goes horribly wrong because of it.

Say your MC's flaw is thinking they can do everything themselves. Well, your midpoint can be an instance where they charge into a predicament expecting to singlehandedly slay the dragon, and they get the daylights beat out of them. Here is where they can realize just how terribly wrong they were. Brooding, self-reflection, self-loathing, all these sorts of things go great in this section. Basically, through this experience, they finally realize the error of their ways.

From there, you can show them making changes. Remember that literally nobody makes a drastic positive change all at once, so have fun making it a process! Have them relapse here and there (and get a spanking on the hand for it). But here, you can have them start fighting the uphill battle to become a better person.

In the case of our "I can do it myself" MC, here you can have him/her start to lean on the others more. All this, of course is leading up to Act 3 and the climax capping that off.

So what about the climax? Well, I'm sure you've heard all the standard advice about it before. I subscribe to most of the typical climax pointers, as what makes a powerful high point to your story is pretty standardized for good reason. It just works.

In our example's case, say the goal was to rescue the princess. Well, here they show up to the evil lair or whatever and confront their last obstacle. I'm not gonna pin your creativity down, but maybe the MC confronts the last obstacle alone for whatever reason, (probably of necessity rather than of choice at this point in their arc), and after some headway, they get beat down. But then they can pick themselves up, brush themselves off, and summon their friends. With the power of teamwork, they eliminate the evil overlord or whoever it was that who was dastardly enough to capture a princess.

In my opinion, the key to both these powerful plot points is suffering. Make the protagonist feel TERRIBLE, physically, emotionally, spiritually, all of it. The difference between the two is that in the climax, the MC has learned the lesson he/she needed, and he/she draws on that to prevail. (We all love to make our characters suffer right? Well here I'm giving you license.)

Now, I did mention the "call to adventure", but I don't think I'm gonna go over that in depth here. If you'd like me to, please let me know. But my focus here is on giving your story...well...focus, and the midpoint and climax are great pegs to keep the narrative thread going one consistent direction. The call to adventure merely sets the journey in motion and defines what it is. Actually, that would be a good topic to cover...let me know if you want that. 😆

I think that's all my thoughts on that, but what about you? How do you keep the narrative focus while also enjoying the spontaneity of the adventure? Any thoughts, comments, questions on my method? And of course, suggestions for new topics are always welcome. I can't wait to discuss this all with you. 😀