Plot Building
The step-by-step guide, how you start building an arch from a simple idea
BEFORE writing a story:
- What are the people involved
— Who is the protagonist
— Who are the secondary people
— And how ARE they related to the story (with spoilers and everything you must need to know to build the whole story).
Writing the story
- Count them as mini arches, you can build it from the biggest to the smallest
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- Biggest
— What is the one thing that you want your readers to leave with after they finish reading
— After these, you may want to point out all the decisions that the people involved have to make for the final arch to make sense
— Then, create situations in which the people involved would have no choice but to follow those decisions for the final arch to work
— You may include emotions and how they affect them, even if it doesn't make sense at first… make it make sense. If you need a background story to understand it, put it before the scene (a smaller arch)
- First arches
— Presenting the people
— Leave no room, but for them to make the right choices for the final arch
— Make them relate to each other… meet each other
— show don't tell
— Instead of making them say “father”, make the father give orders to the daughter about school (maybe)
- Mid archs
— How are those small moments are gonna be connected to the final and biggest arch
NOTE: You can plan the arches in whatever order you feel comfortable with each time.
Call to action:
Here I leave my example, how I used this method to write a story: The Space Between Words
