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Writing Hacked 3- Plot Writing
Disclaimer: PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE PROCEEDING FURTHER!
I have no formal education in creative writing or literature whatsoever. I learned everything by myself through youtube, reading, research, understanding, and writing away as much as I can. I make a lot of mistakes whether it be grammatical or any other kind. I hope you can point them out and help me correct it so I can learn more. I will try my best to provide you errorless guidance though. I am not going to pretend to know everything because I really don't. I have a lot to discover yet.
Whatever I am going to tell you here is through my own understanding and experience.
Enjoy.
💥Writing Hacked- 3💥
HOW TO WRITE A GOOD STORY
Please check out the previous post before proceeding further:
1. Stasis
2. The Trigger
***
🔶3. The Quest:
Now, this part forms a majority of the story. As the name suggests, our character is on the journey now. They travel, learn, evolve, and change decisions. It is the part where you describe motivations in great detail.
This is also the point where we learn about the opposition, the antagonist of the story or any other obstacles so use this part well!
💮Tip- This is a great part to do foreshadowing(meaning giving readers hint about what might happen in the future. In Marvel Universe, We find out about infinity stones in Thor's movie! You see how cleverly they put it there. A quest within a quest!🌸
↪Example:
⚠ SPOILERS AHEAD! If you have not read my story 'Garden Of Spiders' until now, go check it out in the story section. I will be using it in many examples since I have used very basic methods in it⚠
A) Officer Christina, Detective Davis, and Walters investigate around the house and come up with possible theories. They take statements and construct the events of what could have happened. We get a hint in the life of Maya's life as well as her neighbors and the children too. We learn about Maya's secrets and past life in this part.
B) Harry gets to know about the magical world of Hogwarts. His past life, the truth about the death of his parents, and Lord Voldemort. He makes friends and adapts to the new environment.
C. In the movie Bahubali, Shiva climbs the waterfall, reaches the land above, meets Avantika(also saves her), and learns about his father and his true identity. He is told about the villain, Bhallaldeva, and how his motivation to complete his journey and take revenge.
The quest is usually filled with lots of detail so try not to make it sound boring by feeding the reader outrageous amount of information that will never come in use again.
The one writer who broke this rule is one of the greatest writers of the time. G.R.R. Martin, who wrote the series Game of Thrones( The song of ice and fire) The entire series is filled with so much detail but the entire thing is so fascinating to read. That's his writer's charm. See, another rule is broken again. I will say it again. You do you.
On the other hand, most of the stories flop because of this very thing. You need to make it intriguing if you want a comprehensive story and execute it properly.
Every story is unique and demands special attention. It solely depends on the writer's imagination how they choose to tell it to readers.
🔶 4. The Surprise
It's the element which puts the character into a dilemma and is often used as a plot twist. It represents character development too.
How a character reacts to the given problem speaks a lot about them.
They might be calm, anxious, scared, or fearless even.
Most importantly, this one doesn't have to be in continuation of the Quest. You can place it anywhere. Some writers place it before climax too.
This surprise can be positive as well as negative. Or either disguised in the other. It serves the purpose to excite the audience and captivate their attention to a longer span.
↪Example:
A) In my story, Garden of Spider,
It was used later in the story when I created a plot twist about who the real killer might be.
Was it the biological father? Or someone else? How Christina reacted to it, how her mind worked, what choices she made, spoke a lot about her character.
B) Harry begins to find more and more about the sorcerer's stone. Watching Voldemort in Forbidden Forest drinking unicorn blood was also a part of the surprise. In the quest, which richly consisted of minor conflicts and changes such as him joining the Quidditch team and learning about new subjects, this surprise added a mystery.
C) In the movie Bahubali, Shiva learns about his past from Kattappa on the battlefield. His true identity gives him the motive to take revenge. He reacted to the situation by fighting a battle and cutting Bhallaldeva's son head off so it tells us he seeks vengeance.
💮Tip- Make a Surprise digestible to the reader. Nobody wants to read a sudden change of events which makes no sense at all. It won't surprise them but would really end up disappointed in shock. Readers invest emotional energy in the work you are doing. It feels like cheating if you promise them one thing and do another. Consider the location, time, relationships, mindset of the character. The easiest way to surprise the audience is putting hints way before in the quest and the trigger in the story. That way, it would feel like, oh, we missed it! What would happen now? Otherwise, you can just surprise them if you have a better explanation later that would make more sense in the future than in presence.💮
The biggest example of how surprise ruined the story was the last season of Game of Thrones. The series has a reputation of being unpredictable and surprisingly the audience in every turn. Last season was very well awaited and writers of the show decided to do something out of expectations of everyone in order to please the audience who was already discussing every single possible theory. They botched the character development of many main characters, rendering the audience shocked in the disappointment of what just happened? The original writer, Martin, who wrote it, always used surprised in bounds of possibilities. But never like, it's absurd and can never happen.
Another example is in the series The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, where Katniss kills Coin other than Snow. Imagine that we have been told that Voldemort is a villain in the entire series of Harry Potter and in the end he just ends up killing someone else, sparing him. *Facepalm* the entire plot was based on revenge and just to surprise the audience the writer changed the main antagonist!
It might be hard to resist every mistake but do try not to do something like this. Please.
Let's wrap it all here.
The next post will be about the 5th point, Critical choice.
🏵About Me:
Hello, My name is Samiksha Kemwal and I am a 20-year-old college-going student who loves stories soooooooo very much! Ever since I was a child, I loved listening to fairy tales and watching stories in any form. Soon, not just fairy tales, I began relishing any form of the genre. As I grew up, I began reading fiction. My love for novels kept on increasing and I would read anything that I could get my hands upon.
Now, I absolutely enjoy stories in any format.
Written, video games, series, dramas, movies, theatrical, etc. It doesn't have to be in my mother tongue (Hindi) or English.
I like watching international shows/movies too. Korean, Chinese, Japanese(animes too), Pakistani, Turkish, Spanish, Indian regional languages with subtitles.
And now I have decided to write.
It's my dream to write a good story and get it published.
So this me. Trying to reach my dreams step by step. And I would like to take you along with me 😉
🌺Drop a heart and a comment below to let me know if you liked it.
🌺Suggest or ask anything, please. It will be my pleasure.
🌺Tag your favorite writers so I can get a review on this series.
🌺Follow for more.
© Samiksha Kemwal
I have no formal education in creative writing or literature whatsoever. I learned everything by myself through youtube, reading, research, understanding, and writing away as much as I can. I make a lot of mistakes whether it be grammatical or any other kind. I hope you can point them out and help me correct it so I can learn more. I will try my best to provide you errorless guidance though. I am not going to pretend to know everything because I really don't. I have a lot to discover yet.
Whatever I am going to tell you here is through my own understanding and experience.
Enjoy.
💥Writing Hacked- 3💥
HOW TO WRITE A GOOD STORY
Please check out the previous post before proceeding further:
1. Stasis
2. The Trigger
***
🔶3. The Quest:
Now, this part forms a majority of the story. As the name suggests, our character is on the journey now. They travel, learn, evolve, and change decisions. It is the part where you describe motivations in great detail.
This is also the point where we learn about the opposition, the antagonist of the story or any other obstacles so use this part well!
💮Tip- This is a great part to do foreshadowing(meaning giving readers hint about what might happen in the future. In Marvel Universe, We find out about infinity stones in Thor's movie! You see how cleverly they put it there. A quest within a quest!🌸
↪Example:
⚠ SPOILERS AHEAD! If you have not read my story 'Garden Of Spiders' until now, go check it out in the story section. I will be using it in many examples since I have used very basic methods in it⚠
A) Officer Christina, Detective Davis, and Walters investigate around the house and come up with possible theories. They take statements and construct the events of what could have happened. We get a hint in the life of Maya's life as well as her neighbors and the children too. We learn about Maya's secrets and past life in this part.
B) Harry gets to know about the magical world of Hogwarts. His past life, the truth about the death of his parents, and Lord Voldemort. He makes friends and adapts to the new environment.
C. In the movie Bahubali, Shiva climbs the waterfall, reaches the land above, meets Avantika(also saves her), and learns about his father and his true identity. He is told about the villain, Bhallaldeva, and how his motivation to complete his journey and take revenge.
The quest is usually filled with lots of detail so try not to make it sound boring by feeding the reader outrageous amount of information that will never come in use again.
The one writer who broke this rule is one of the greatest writers of the time. G.R.R. Martin, who wrote the series Game of Thrones( The song of ice and fire) The entire series is filled with so much detail but the entire thing is so fascinating to read. That's his writer's charm. See, another rule is broken again. I will say it again. You do you.
On the other hand, most of the stories flop because of this very thing. You need to make it intriguing if you want a comprehensive story and execute it properly.
Every story is unique and demands special attention. It solely depends on the writer's imagination how they choose to tell it to readers.
🔶 4. The Surprise
It's the element which puts the character into a dilemma and is often used as a plot twist. It represents character development too.
How a character reacts to the given problem speaks a lot about them.
They might be calm, anxious, scared, or fearless even.
Most importantly, this one doesn't have to be in continuation of the Quest. You can place it anywhere. Some writers place it before climax too.
This surprise can be positive as well as negative. Or either disguised in the other. It serves the purpose to excite the audience and captivate their attention to a longer span.
↪Example:
A) In my story, Garden of Spider,
It was used later in the story when I created a plot twist about who the real killer might be.
Was it the biological father? Or someone else? How Christina reacted to it, how her mind worked, what choices she made, spoke a lot about her character.
B) Harry begins to find more and more about the sorcerer's stone. Watching Voldemort in Forbidden Forest drinking unicorn blood was also a part of the surprise. In the quest, which richly consisted of minor conflicts and changes such as him joining the Quidditch team and learning about new subjects, this surprise added a mystery.
C) In the movie Bahubali, Shiva learns about his past from Kattappa on the battlefield. His true identity gives him the motive to take revenge. He reacted to the situation by fighting a battle and cutting Bhallaldeva's son head off so it tells us he seeks vengeance.
💮Tip- Make a Surprise digestible to the reader. Nobody wants to read a sudden change of events which makes no sense at all. It won't surprise them but would really end up disappointed in shock. Readers invest emotional energy in the work you are doing. It feels like cheating if you promise them one thing and do another. Consider the location, time, relationships, mindset of the character. The easiest way to surprise the audience is putting hints way before in the quest and the trigger in the story. That way, it would feel like, oh, we missed it! What would happen now? Otherwise, you can just surprise them if you have a better explanation later that would make more sense in the future than in presence.💮
The biggest example of how surprise ruined the story was the last season of Game of Thrones. The series has a reputation of being unpredictable and surprisingly the audience in every turn. Last season was very well awaited and writers of the show decided to do something out of expectations of everyone in order to please the audience who was already discussing every single possible theory. They botched the character development of many main characters, rendering the audience shocked in the disappointment of what just happened? The original writer, Martin, who wrote it, always used surprised in bounds of possibilities. But never like, it's absurd and can never happen.
Another example is in the series The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, where Katniss kills Coin other than Snow. Imagine that we have been told that Voldemort is a villain in the entire series of Harry Potter and in the end he just ends up killing someone else, sparing him. *Facepalm* the entire plot was based on revenge and just to surprise the audience the writer changed the main antagonist!
It might be hard to resist every mistake but do try not to do something like this. Please.
Let's wrap it all here.
The next post will be about the 5th point, Critical choice.
🏵About Me:
Hello, My name is Samiksha Kemwal and I am a 20-year-old college-going student who loves stories soooooooo very much! Ever since I was a child, I loved listening to fairy tales and watching stories in any form. Soon, not just fairy tales, I began relishing any form of the genre. As I grew up, I began reading fiction. My love for novels kept on increasing and I would read anything that I could get my hands upon.
Now, I absolutely enjoy stories in any format.
Written, video games, series, dramas, movies, theatrical, etc. It doesn't have to be in my mother tongue (Hindi) or English.
I like watching international shows/movies too. Korean, Chinese, Japanese(animes too), Pakistani, Turkish, Spanish, Indian regional languages with subtitles.
And now I have decided to write.
It's my dream to write a good story and get it published.
So this me. Trying to reach my dreams step by step. And I would like to take you along with me 😉
🌺Drop a heart and a comment below to let me know if you liked it.
🌺Suggest or ask anything, please. It will be my pleasure.
🌺Tag your favorite writers so I can get a review on this series.
🌺Follow for more.
© Samiksha Kemwal
