Does Your Plot Suck?

Рет қаралды 7,028

Күн бұрын

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Whether you’re a meticulous plotter or you let your story come to you as you write, your novel’s plot is a critical component of your story. So, how do you ensure your plot is successfully gripping, engrossing, and entertaining? If you have just finished writing your book or are trying to work through your novel’s plot currently, you might be wondering if your plot is as strong as you think it is in your head. To help you strengthen your story and craft the best plot possible, in this video I go over some questions you can use to determine whether your plot is effective or if it could be improved.
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GREAT BOOKS ABOUT WRITING/PUBLISHING:
Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer / amzn.to/3VE8dtt
Save the Cat! Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody / amzn.to/3Vyk2Bn
Before and After the Book Deal by Courtney Maum / amzn.to/3Z4at03
SOME OF MY FAVORITE NOVELS:
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones / amzn.to/3vvWItt
Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips / amzn.to/3CFz4Pt
Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid / amzn.to/3CjFFi5
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MORE WRITING RESOURCES:
Cliché Plot Tropes to Avoid: • Cliché Plot Tropes to ...
Which Writer Personality Type Are You?: • Which Writer Personali...
Does Your Main Character Suck?: • Does Your Main Charact...
HOW TO WRITE AN EFFECTIVE PLOT:
02:09 - Is there a clear point of conflict?
04:22 - Are the stakes high enough?
05:36 - Do the characters confront obstacles?
06:39 - Do you avoid unnecessary subplots?
08:12 - Do your scenes build on one another?
ABOUT ME:
My name is Alyssa Matesic, and I’m a professional book editor with 7+ years of book publishing and editorial experience. Throughout my career, I’ve held editorial roles across both sides of the publishing industry: Big Five publishing houses and literary agencies. The goal of this channel is to help writers throughout the book writing journey-whether you're working on your manuscript or you're looking for publishing advice.
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Smith The Mister bit.ly/Smith-The-Mister-YT
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Some of the links above are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I may earn a commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.

Пікірлер: 53

@phanapoonsuradetcurry Жыл бұрын

This channel is a vitamin for writers 🥰. Kudos alyssa

@ronricooandasan9612 Жыл бұрын

AMEN!

@AlyssaMatesic Жыл бұрын

I'm glad my videos are helpful! :)

@rebeccadey Жыл бұрын

Plot has always been my weakest area and the element I've been honing the most the last few years. I come from a background in drawing, so I've always been strong with character creation, making backstories and personalities, but weaving together a cohesive plot to showcase a goal and transformation of those characters was elusive for a long time. Thankfully, I found Save the Cat Writes a Novel, which helped me visualize a plot map that I could then customize. Videos like yours are so validating in helping me see I'm on the right track this time. :) Thank you for all you do for this community!

@appledough3843 Жыл бұрын

What kind of story are you writing?

@rebeccadey Жыл бұрын

@@appledough3843 I write primarily fantasy stories. The current WIP is a more traditional high fantasy. I also have some urban/contemporary fantasy worlds :)

@appledough3843 Жыл бұрын

@@rebeccadey Oh fantasy! I like! Okay to ask for a synopsis? Or is that too confidential 🤫

@jesbrimer3096 Жыл бұрын

Ah, I have no stakes! Thank you for making this video!! I so needed this

@danceluvinmamba94 Жыл бұрын

I'm working on a fantasy series that follows several main characters and recently hit a wall because I'm trying to tie each of their story lines together and it's making the first book entirely too long. This is super helpful, thank you!

@grabble7605 Жыл бұрын

George R.R. Martin ran into that. He called it the 'Mereenese knot' (referencing both the mythological Gordian Knot and that his wall came up during the story events set in Mereen). It stalled him but he's kept going. Stephen King also once ran into that wall of just too many character lines to follow. His solution? He had one of them plant a bomb that killed half of them. That book is The Stand and it's fucking great.

@robertbrumbaugh4634 Жыл бұрын

Thank you for your great insight. Your plot points gave me a new insight into a major revision for my query letter contents. I am grateful for your excellent channel and its lessons.

@AlyssaMatesic Жыл бұрын

Glad it was helpful!

@SydneyKay Жыл бұрын

Literally binged your channel this week and am obsessed! Great video!

@AlyssaMatesic Жыл бұрын

Glad you enjoy it!

@deebrown5980 Жыл бұрын

Thanks Alyssa. Very helpful topic and tips.

@cjpreach Жыл бұрын

Great stuff, Alyssa. In total agreement with the plot advice I found regarding screenwriting.

@rdrydnghdwolfe1396 Жыл бұрын

Excellent content, Alyssa!

@gilcori1234 Жыл бұрын

I really appreciate you putting some of these into questions someone can directly apply to their stories and following up with examples. I'm doing a daily NaNoWriMo discussion this month in my discord to help the writers, myself included, build up momentum for NaNo. I jotted down a few of these and will be sharing them. I'm sure everyone will find them useful. Thank you so much for your clear and consistent advice.

@AlyssaMatesic Жыл бұрын

Best of luck with NaNoWriMo!

@chloetownsend7364 Жыл бұрын

Excellent! Thank you!

@megorra Жыл бұрын

Excellent advice as always, and I'm pleased to say I got 5 Yes's so I must be doing things right. Thanks Alyssa for another helpful video.

@clintoreilly Жыл бұрын

Great tips, as always. Thanks, Alyssa.

@AlyssaMatesic Жыл бұрын

Thanks for watching!

@gokux75 Жыл бұрын

Great video. I have been using them to gauge how well I am doing with my novel. So far it is going good according to your videos lol.

@alisongood9572 Жыл бұрын

This video was hugely helpful in focusing one of my novels. I've got plot points, characters, arcs, motivations, etc. It just wasn't coming together. This video helps focus on one character to center everything.

@autonomyllc9920 6 ай бұрын

Excellent!

@andyclark3530 Жыл бұрын

Well, I wish I'd read this three years ago😀I'm working in the Epic Fantasy realm, and at one point I had 5 POVs. I justified all of them in terms of helping build the plot, but I realized that part of what I was trying to do was to give the reader different experiences of my world, and while they all made some contribution to the overall story, they also fattened it up and got in its way. I've cleaved it down to three, with probably 80% of the scenes coming from the POV of the protagonist, and maybe 15% from the principal antagonist. The balance of the scenes are from the POV of a cotagonist because I think the reader needs to put their shoes on a few times to understand. I think your questions can be a little challenging for a story with a particular type of positive arc. My protagonist has a conflict, but she completely misunderstands it until the end. It's epic fantasy so there are plenty of physical conflicts, but the crucial conflict for the story really occurs within the protagonist herself as she changes in ways she barely recognizes, even at the end. Now, when are you going to let us know about that time machine that would let us go back and recover the lost time from going down blind alleys in our writing?

@grabble7605 Жыл бұрын

3:22 Simba wanting to take back Pride Rock is not even a thing until the very last scenes of the movie...

@emilylucas4431 Жыл бұрын

Love your videos, thank you so much for sharing! All of this information is great! With the example of conflict in the Lion King you mention Simba wanting to take back pride rock as the main point of conflict. If I imagine this as a novel, this conflict is not brought up in the hypothetical first 10 pages / chapter however. What are your tips for effectively hinting at this impending conflict, when the main point of conflict is perhaps not revealed until later on in the story or than the first 10 pages / chapter might allow?

@ninaverseninaverse0190 Жыл бұрын

GOD MAN I WRITTING COMIC AND U ARE SO HELPFUL!! you litterarly made me understand that my plot is desent 🤣

@AlyssaMatesic Жыл бұрын

Glad I could help!

@ninaverseninaverse0190 Жыл бұрын

@@AlyssaMatesic yeah girl u are very specific i like it

@billharm6006 Жыл бұрын

My story's main conflict is a mystery that must initially be uncovered by the POV characters (I'm working to minimize that count while still "plausibly" pulling together the necessary information). An initial mystery (demonstrated in a prologue) is followed by a series of seemingly unrelated events which eventually gel into a linked narrative (Yes. There are conflicts and obstacles to overcome). The initial "Ah-Ha!" comes at the end of Act I when a surprise external event encourages development of a hypothesis. Only then can the main conflict be directly developed for the reader. This event sequence creates a conflict with your advice because the main conflict cannot come by the end of chapter 1. An obvious--and highly unwelcome--solution would be to cut out the discovery and simply say that the main conflict is now known, never mind how the characters became aware of it in the first place. An adjusted form of that solution would be to litter the story with backflashes to explain how particular elements of the conflict were discovered (my wording tells you what I think of that). Obviously, I've had too much fun thinking about this story (it has truly ancient roots). Short of keeping the story for my private enjoyment only, what advice might you have?

@grabble7605 Жыл бұрын

I can figure out setpieces and major scenes. It's the connecting strings between that are the problem. Like what the hell's happening between Bilbo leaving home and running into trolls? He's just...Walking, right. How the hell do you make that any sort of compelling.

@danwylie-sears1134 Жыл бұрын

No. The reader should be able to relate to the characters as people. People are almost never monomaniacs who want just one thing. The current main plot arc should be clear: in book 1, Mercy has to stop the bad guys who harmed Mac; in book 1, Kate has to figure out who killed her adoptive father*; in book 1, Toby has to solve the murder of Countess Evening Winterrose. But the current main plot arc doesn't have to be the important stuff. In those books, the important stuff is whether the protagonists will get together with Adam, Curran, and Tybalt respectively, whether they'll save their respective worlds, and how they'll resolve things with Bran Cornick, Roland, and Duke Torquill and/or Oberon. Even in a 20-minute TV show there's room for a B plot. A novel has incomparably more room, and insisting that it have an overriding focus on only one plot is just a bad idea. *She refers to him as her "guardian", because she had an earlier adoptive father, who was also killed.

@chiron13 Жыл бұрын

1:19 Tactical writing ? 😁 Were you a Marine?

@coreyhuffman7607 Жыл бұрын

One tricky thing I'm dealing with in my plot (an epic fantasy with 4 POV's) is showing the connection between two POV's in particular. I know the reader wants to see what connects all the storylines (ideally as soon as possible), but the thing which connects these two is also a mystery that's left as a reveal for at least midway through the story. Curious to know your thoughts on handling this, as I naturally want the reader to feel that all these storylines are connected, but also can't spoil this mystery too early. The other two POV storylines are clearly connected from the beginning, and I like to think each story has the depth to stand on its own, so it might not be an issue. Just thought I'd ask.

@nicholaslewis862 Жыл бұрын

It sounds like their plots are connected, but that's only one aspect of making them feel connected. I'm working on a book with two POVs, and I've tried to compare and contrast the character arcs of my two protagonists. One sees a dream for the future, the other a dire warning in the form of a nightmare. One is ambitious and driven, the other is sheltered and reluctant. This also goes with theme - how do your different POVs explore your book's central themes? Maybe they all have the theme of redemption in common, and each story explores that idea in different ways. That way, you don't have to reveal how they're connected by the plot until the end while simultaneously tying the stories together thematically.

@coreyhuffman7607 Жыл бұрын

@@nicholaslewis862 Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Connecting them more thematically in the early chapters might be just what's needed. 🙂

@wind-upboy939 Жыл бұрын

Is there a big event that starts your story? If something big is at the beginning, it can be interesting, how different people react to that event.

@TrevorJohnson-mo3us 7 ай бұрын

So the first point is great advice, however what would one do in a situation like mine where the core conflict starts out as one thing (survial), but evolves into directly involving the main villain at the end of act 1 (due to events that take place revenge becomes the MC's motive)?

@timesmash Жыл бұрын

No, my plot's awesome

@obi1_trq869 Жыл бұрын

How can I get in touch with you?

@therapybee Жыл бұрын

This apply to non fiction as well?

@dueling_spectra7270 Жыл бұрын

Timonne and Pumba had their own movie? How did I miss this?!

@AlyssaMatesic Жыл бұрын

Haha yes--The Lion King 1½!

@grabble7605 Жыл бұрын

It's not "their own", really. It's also shit. It's just them stumbling through The Lion King scenes and making all of them worse.

@michaelbjrklund9304 11 ай бұрын

Don't you need to have scenes that increase the reader's knowledge about for instance the internal conflicts and relations between the MC /MC's and VIPalmostMC's? Scenes that will be key to how these characters interact for the next 60 chapters and be the key to explaining for instance why almostMC wants/tries to kill the MC near the end of the book?You do not really want to explain that part of their relationship so late but should instead show it earlier and allow the readers' understanding of the chatacters to build up during the book... or what?`! Thanks for some excellent videos, btw. Good stuff, dude/dudess! 🙂