Plot is simply the plan of your story. It's the movement of the people in your story through situations and through settings to get to certain goals. Some novel ideas are about a situation. Some ideas about a character. No matter where your idea starts, you must turn the idea into a plot if you want enough story for writing a novel.
How do you do this? By asking questions. The two questions you want to ask to transform an idea into a plot are: What if. What if is the seed question to every novel plot. To get a full, complex plot, you must ask this question over and over and over and over.
For example, take the idea of an alternate universe where fat is considered beautiful. To transform this idea into a plot you might ask, what if a very obese woman from our universe ended up in this alternate universe? What would that be like for her? What if she suddenly was considered drop-dead gorgeous in this alternate universe? What would that be like for her? What if she started losing weight? What if by losing weight, she ends up as unhappy in this universe as she was in the one she left behind? Do you see how this works? You play with what if.
Once you've asked the what if questions several times, you are ready to ask the next question. Why? The why question expands on your what if questions. You use why to flesh out the scenarios you came up with as a result of asking what if.
For example, one of the what if questions for the alternate universe idea could be, 'what if the main character started losing weight?' To expand on this what if, you would ask, 'Why'. Why would she lose weight? The why would take you back to what if. What if she lost weight because she was so happy that she no longer ate to cover her pain?
That what if would lead you to another why: Why, if she ate to cover pain, wouldn't she just eat again once she started losing weight in the new reality? Wouldn't that make her unhappy enough to binge again? Why wouldn't she just go back to eating a lot?
That why, again, will take you to a what if: What if she no longer wants to eat to cover pain and something in her experience of this new universe has changed her. She just doesn't know what it is. What if? Why? Do you see the process? You ask what if. That gives you information. Then you ask why. That gives you more information, which leads you back to what if.
It's impossible to structure novel plotting much more than this. It's a general brainstorming process that requires your mind to be free and full of possibility. This brainstorming is what will give you the foundation of what you need for writing a novel.
When Warner Books, one of the world's largest publishing companies, published my first book, The Angry Clam, back in 1998, the most common question I was asked was, "What were you smoking when you wrote this book?" This was quickly followed by the second most common question, "How in the world did a 40-page, hand-written book with bad drawings of a clam get published?"
The answer to the first question was easy - pure Turkish Hashish - just kidding. (Actually, I awoke in the middle of the night with the idea of a ticked off clam running through my head, then feverishly spent the wee hours putting a frantic pencil to paper.) The answer to the second question takes a little bit more explaining but I believe it contains one of the essential keys (and secrets) to getting published.
The story of how I got The Angry Clam published is a brief one so I will share it with you now:
After I awoke from my long morning nap after having spent the previous night beginning and completing my first ever attempt at literature, I reviewed what I wrote, kind of liked it, and then decided to show it to a few friends. To my amazement, they all thought it was hysterically funny - but in a good way. (They were actually laughing WITH the book not at it!)
Inspired by this, I purchased the supplies necessary to create a more presentable copy of the book - like giving it a cover and hand-writing and drawing each page in pen - and then went to my local Kinko's to get 50 copies printed up. The following day, with my 50 copies in hand, I decided to go to the owner of a neighborhood bookstore to see if he would be interested in selling The Angry Clam on consignment. To my delight, he looked at the book, laughed, and then said sure, why not, he would take 5 copies. (I believe he was half taking pity on me.)
Unbelievably, within 24 hours, I received a call from the owner asking me for 10 more copies. He then explained how the staff of the bookstore had bought the books and they were now passing them around for everyone to read. I brought over the 10 copies and they were immediately placed in the "Staff Favorite" section near the front register. Incredibly, I began receiving weekly orders for the books.
Encouraged by this, I then went to the owner of another neighborhood bookstore, described the tale of what was happening down the street, and he too agreed to take a few copies. Astonishingly, a very similar phenomenon happened. So this was great - I now had 2 local bookstores consistently selling and promoting The Angry Clam. It was at this point that I stumbled upon the very simple idea that would eventually get big New York literary agents and then several major publishing houses to pay The Angry Clam notice.
Placing a call to the owners of the 2 bookstores, I very politely asked them if they would each write a brief letter describing the "phenomenon" of the The Angry Clam at their store. Thankfully, they both agreed and within a day I had my two letters.
Armed with these testaments of The Angry Clam's selling prowess, I was ready to see just how far my little book could go. So I purchased a copy of the Writer's Guide to Literary Agents, picked about a dozen agents, and then mailed out a copy of the book and the 2 letters to each one of them.
What happened next has made me a legend in my own mind. Within 2 weeks I received calls from 5 of the agents - each wanting to represent The Angry Clam. After carefully selecting one of them, it took less than a month to get my first of several publishing offers.
What happened after the book was bought by Warner Books is a tale for another day. (The Angry Clam eventually hit the shelves of bookstores all over the United States and even rose into the Hot 100 on Amazon.
But the moral of The Angry Clam story is this - in the publishing world, a book's perceived ability to sell is king. Prove to the publishing companies that your books can sell on a small scale and they just might take a chance that your books will sell on a large scale. What have they got to lose? Unknown authors rarely get more than a tiny advance and the cost to print up the first 2,000 books is nothing to a large company.
Both Karin Manning & Erik Quisling are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Karin Manning has sinced written about articles on various topics from Vacation, Nutrition and Recreation and Sports. SPECIAL OFFER: If you are writing a novel or are thinking about writing your first novel then learn the quickest way to become a published writer and top novel writing secrets by visiting:. Karin Manning's top article generates over 368000 views. to your Favourites.
Erik Quisling has sinced written about articles on various topics from Writing. Erik Quisling is the author of the critically acclaimed new book, Fables from the Mud (Borderlands Press, Nov. 2007). His website is .. Erik Quisling's top article generates over 2900 views. to your Favourites.