The Left Hand Of Darkness Went On To Win Both The Nebula And Hugo Awards, Among Others, Has Been Reprinted

Writing from Scratch #9

Complex Plots, Part 2: Modifying Plots

The second way we’ll try complicating a plot is through plot modifiers. This happens when a try-fail cycle not only furthers the solution of one plot-problem but spawns a new plot-problem. What these plots actually modify are the stakes. They can give far-off worst-case scenarios more immediacy, which is what the plot analysis we’ll be getting into today does. Or they can show clear examples of what’s at stake for more abstract cases (think of Gollum in The Lord of the Rings clarifies our fears for what could happen to Frodo).

How does this work? Let’s look back at the plot analysis I did for The Expanse, Season 1 Episode 2, “The Big Empty.” A brief recap:

The Background: The Knight, a small, rickety life-boat sized spaceship with 5 survivors is all that’s left of the Canterbury after an attack on the larger vessel.

The Problem: The Knight’s radio is dead.

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The worst part about working on original fiction is u gotta wait like 5 years to get a book draft done in order to SHOW YOUR FRIENDS chapters. Ain't like fanfic where you can just....send em. Tis horrid.

Underlined PSA

Figment, the recently closed writing website, has just launched (after a long delay) their long-awaited successor to figment known as Underlined, where users can post their work and receive feedback, supposedly.

DO NOT USE UNDERLINED. DO NOT POST YOUR WORK ON UNDERLINED.

Underlined’s terms and conditions contains a clause stating that the rights to all your work that you post on their website belongs to them!!!!

Underlined belongs to Penguin Random House. This is an extremely dirty trick for them to play on writers, especially young writers and children, who come to the internet to get feedback and will lose the rights to their work. Please boost!!!

Now THIS is art. 😍

Writing from Scratch #8: Complex Plots, Part 1

Complex Plots, Part 1: Dependency

Now that we have gone over the four simple plot-problems (1, 2, 3, 4) and how they are solved through try-fail cycles, we’ll take a look at how to make complex, compound, and compound-complex plots through the same devices as sentence creation.

The first way we’ll try complicating a plot is by making the solution of the first noted plot-problem dependent on the solution of a second plot-problem, which stands in for easy solution prevention. We’re typically going to use dependent plots to strengthen audience satisfaction when the character is finally able to succeed. Or, like in the case-study we’ll look at today, they can be used to draw what appeared to be disparate plots together in longer works.

Let’s look at an example from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Chapter Seventeen, “Cat, Rat, and Dog.”

The first plot-problem to arise an Event. Ron has been tackled by a large black dog that has been stalking Harry all school year and dragged underground. Harry succinctly gives the stakes as, “That thing’s big enough to eat him; we haven’t got time.” And what’s preventing them from going directly after Ron to save him is the Whomping Willow, which triggers an Inquiry plot – How does one get past the Whomping Willow to the tunnel?

First Harry tries to dodge through. He’s unable to get to the tunnel entrances and is thrashed by the branches for his trouble.

Then, Crookshanks appears and places his paw on a knot on the Whomping Willow’s trunk, which temporarily stills the whomping. This answers the question, and Harry and Hermione take the opportunity to dash beneath the stilled branches and into the tunnel.

Now, we return to the Event plot; Harry and Hermione will try to reestablish the status quo by rescuing Ron from the dog. If you’ve read the book, you know how that try-fail cycle continues on.

As we begin to add plots together in various ways, it is always important to remember that the plot-solutions should come in reverse order to the introductions of the plot-problems. The first plot problem introduced should be the last one solved (even when they are right on top of each other).

We’re going to continue with writing flash fiction. Using the Eighteen Sentence Story breakdown, we’ll expand just a little out from there. In the two sentences introducing the plot-problem, you’ll create a second plot-problem to prevent the first from being solved easily. Add 5-10 sentences for a try-fail cycle and plot solution to this second plot-problem, and then continue with the 5 sentence try-fail, 5 sentence solution, and 3 sentence wrap-up for the original plot-problem.

Prompt: write a flash fiction with a Milieu plot involving a treasure hunt; complicate the Milieu plot by first requiring an Inquiry plot answering “where” before moving onto the Milieu plot solution.

This was first published in July 2020, and I’ve written much more since on my website theferalcollection.com

Mr. Gaiman, I love your writing and your tumblr presence. If I can ask your advice, I’m a writer and I feel like I’ve lost inspiration for plot. I want to write emotions and relationships, but the story always escapes me. What do you do when you know your characters and how they relate to each other but not the story? Thank you!

The quickest way, if you have two characters you like and want to see succeed, is to have them want mutually exclusive things. And that’s a plot.

How do you do, fellow kids?

I have a homework assignment on color theory, and could really use your help! Do you have a minute to take a quick 7 question survey about the color in this picture? Follow the link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ZYD7MDK

The Whole Potter-Dumbledore Relationship

Is Dumbledore actually evil or is he way more tragic than anyone realized? So I’ve been thinking recently about Harry Potter, and by recently I mean for the past decade and a half. But recently, as “since Thursday, February 11,” I’ve been thinking about a very specific thing in Harry Potter. Over at Tor.Com, Emily Asher-Perrin has a fabulous reread going on (that’s almost over *sob*), and in her…

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Writing from Scratch #4

The Milieu Plot

The problem of the milieu plot involves a problem of location or setting. The character is often either in a place they need/want to escape from or not in the specific place they need/want to be in. The try-fail cycles will involve traveling away from or to the location. Gulliver’s Travels, The Great Escape, and The Hobbit contain milieu plots.

The Lord of the Rings contains one very large milieu – the problem of getting the One Ring from the Shire where its been hidden for a number of years to Mordor where it can finally be destroyed. We can further break this down into smaller milieu plots. Let’s look at one: the problem of crossing the Misty Mountains. (And we’ll use the events as they occur in the movie, since more people have watched that than read the book)

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Most shows with overpowered supernatural characters always try to come up with elaborate excuses to explain why the characters can’t just magic themselves out of every situation. Good Omens doesn’t really do that, but you don’t really question it because you completely buy that these morons are so unequivocally incompetent that they straight up forget that they have the powers of fucking demigods. They’re like high-level d&d characters who only use the same three moves and have completely forgotten about the 73 magic items sitting in their inventory.