Introduction

Are you confused about plot? You are not alone. Plot took me years to pin down. I attended all sorts of writing workshops but found much of the information difficult to transfer to the page. I read all sorts of books on the craft of writing, but the advice generally boiled down to putting your character in a pickle and seeing what happens next. This technique works for many successful writers, but it did not work for me.

I longed for something more concrete—not a formula per se, but specific guidelines to help bring depth to my storylines. I searched for anything I could find that directly addressed the issue of plot development. Unable to find what I sought, I berated myself for not grasping what everyone else seemed to understand naturally. I even quit writing for a spell, reasoning that if I were truly meant to be a writer, it would come more easily for me. But the muse continued to haunt me. Over time, I came to realize that everyone else was struggling with plot; they just were not talking about it.

Through years of perseverance and determination, I pinned down the elusive concept of plot to the point where I could actually “see” it. Wanting to save others the frustration I had experienced, and using what I know about how people learn, I started teaching plot to writers. Writing Blockbuster Plots was born of that passion.

In workshops and private consultations, I have witnessed what happens when writers delve more deeply into the dynamics of cause and effect. If you explore how well-constructed characters in conflict act as the driving force behind an exceptional story, you will be better able to create your own exceptional stories. Explore the themes of your own life, and your projects will have lasting meaning.

The techniques I offer in Writing Blockbuster Plots have helped thousands of writers create dramatic action plots, and heighten tension and suspense in scenes as well as in the overall story.

Plot is a series of scenes arranged by cause and effect to create dramatic action filled with tension and conflict that furthers the character’s emotional development and creates thematic significance.

Who This Book Is For

If you are having a difficult time seeing where your story is headed, or if ideas are rolling around in your head but you are having trouble getting started, or if your book has been rejected time and time again, you most likely need help with plot. This is the book for you.

Whether you are a screenwriter, a memoirist, or an author of children’s, young adult, or adult fiction, you will benefit from a firm understanding of scene and a concrete method for developing a plotline that combines the dramatic action, character emotional development, and thematic elements of your project.

Devising a clearly formulated plotline helps authors get going, prevents them from stalling partway through, and guarantees that even those who typically never finish anything will make it to the end.

When this book calls for interactive participation, I encourage you to do so using your own characters and scenes. If you have not yet started a writing project, use your imagination or a book by your favorite author.

Use Writing Blockbuster Plots in conjunction with one of my online writing workshop video programs1Access these videos at marthaalderson.com/video-courses. or on its own. Either way, the techniques presented here will change your writing life forever. For the sake of convenience, this book gives independent consideration to the dramatic action, character emotional development, and thematic significance of a story. But keep in mind that all aspects of a successful story must become integrated to create unity. Achieving this unity is the goal of every writer.

How to Use This Book

Writing Blockbuster Plots is divided into two parts: Plot Planner and Scene Tracker. Both parts are step-by-step, interactive guides for providing depth for your stories and maximizing the impact of your scenes.

Your ability to plot is strengthened by doing the work.

The Plot Planner

Plot springs from a character in conflict. The Plot Planner is a storyboard that shows how the three essential plots—dramatic action, character emotional development, and thematic meaning—rise and fall together from beginning to end. You will learn about action, character, and thematic plot using your scene and story ideas to create a Plot Planner for your latest project.

This is an example of a Plot Planner for the suspense novel Folly by award-winning author Laurie R. King. The protagonist, Rae Newborn, is a woman teetering on the edge of sanity and reeling from tragedy. She moves to Folly Island to restore the home of her mysterious great-uncle and to rebuild her life, but she must battle her own paranoia and “watchers” in the trees—who may or may not be a figment of her imagination.

Download a larger version of this Plot Planner at www.writersdigest.com/writing-blockbuster-plots.

We will return to the beginning, middle, and end sections of this Plot Planner throughout Part One.

The Scene Tracker

A good scene advances the plot of the story, develops the character, contributes to the theme, provides tension and conflict, and/or reflects a change in emotion or circumstances. A great scene does all of these things at once. The Scene Tracker is a form that helps you see all of the important layers of each of your scenes side by side and step by step from the beginning to the end of your project.

Th is is an example of a Scene Tracker that shows three important scenes from the coming-of-age middle-grade novel Tracker by award-winning author Gary Paulsen. In this story, a young boy begins to believe that a deer he has been tracking for two days has the power to cheat death and save the life of his grandfather, who is dying of cancer.

Scene Tracker: Tracker by Gary Paulsen

Notes: Thematic Significance: “Beauty comes from instinct and helps you remember.”

What You Need

Throughout Writing Blockbuster Plots, you are invited to apply the techniques to your own work or, if you don’t currently have a work-in-progress, to use the work of a writer you admire. I encourage you to use your own work, no matter how rough you believe it is. Either way, all you need to proceed are the following:

• a willing heart
• a copy of your manuscript or a book that you do not mind marking up
• a six-foot strip of banner paper
• a set of markers
• a pad of sticky notes

If your heart is willing but your mind recoils from the methodical, organized approach to the creative process presented in this book, I encourage you to step out of your comfort zone. One resistant writer moaned that she was not an organized person and that these techniques would not work for her. Yet she knew her story needed help, so she stuck with it. Now she encourages other resistant writers to remain open to practices they may find valuable, and to confront their fears and grow as writers.

If you like to work things out on the page, so be it. But at the same time, consider the ideas in this book. A key element in the nature of creativity is giving yourself time to work things out. When you are ready for your first rewrite, perhaps then you will be ready to give the techniques a try.

Sensory Feedback

In my life before writing, I founded a speech, language, and learning disability clinic for children and young adults. For more than twenty years, I interacted with thousands of children and came to appreciate firsthand the many different ways people learn.

In appreciation for all the different styles of learning that exist, Writing Blockbuster Plots is formatted to provide you with as much sensory feedback as possible for full discovery and for ease in learning. The more you actively participate in the process, the more you will grasp. The idea is to shake things up. Do things differently and watch your piece rush at you in a completely new way.

This book is divided between hands-on activities and corresponding explanations. A pencil icon will notify you of each “hands-on” step toward creating your own Plot Planner and Scene Tracker. I also provide straightforward explanations that will appeal to your cognition. Each time you fill in a form, your sense of touch is stimulated and gives you kinesthetic feedback.

One sense I cannot provide on these pages is the sense of hearing. If at any point in the book you lose your energy or passion for further exploration into your writing, or if you are confronted with something that feels uncomfortably challenging, read the passages aloud. You may find that you benefit from the auditory feedback.

As a result of all my years of teaching, I have found that it is easier to welcome new material when we stay open and loose. Therefore, I suggest you breathe and do what you have to do to remain relaxed. We have all been taught to try harder when confronting a challenge. But actually, the harder we try, the tenser we become, closing off our ability to absorb and assimilate new information. I’ve included reminders throughout the book to prompt you to stop every so often to take a moment to reflect and relax.

Examples

Throughout both parts of Writing Blockbuster Plots, I provide you with examples of how other writers successfully accomplished the tasks offered. The examples are intended to empower you.

Many of the examples are from Pulitzer Prize–winning fiction. Let me assure you that I did not choose these brilliant examples of plot and scene to intimidate you. Rather, I use them with the firm belief that the stories came to their authors just as your story comes to you: through a lot of hard work and many rewrites.

The exploration into plot and scene will ensure that with each rewrite you will give your story a sharper focus and greater depth.

What to Expect

If you are an intuitive writer who likes to find your way on the page, you may feel overwhelmed or balk at some of the techniques offered in this book. Go ahead and acknowledge the resistance. Then find a way to make the system work for you. The ideas presented here are left-brained activities. You likely feel more comfortable working with the right side of your brain. However, these techniques will support your intuitive side by defining boundaries in which you can create. This process will ultimately help your writing. What I offer here can and should be revised in any way that serves your writing.

Signs are posted along the way to help facilitate learning. For example, there is a light bulb icon in the middle of chapter three. For those of you who benefit from immediate, experiential, hands-on learning, this is a spot where you can put this book down and pick up your own project. If you choose to stop at the stop signs, go ahead and try out the technique and organization until you are ready to move on.

If at any point while you are working on the techniques offered in Writing Blockbuster Plots you feel inspired to return to the actual writing of your story, by all means put this book down and do so.

Remember: The ideas offered in Writing Blockbuster Plots are not rules; they are simply loose guidelines intended to be bent, ignored, and adapted in whatever way best supports your storytelling.