Several questions come up a lot about plotting – how can you be sure it makes sense, how can you be sure it’s not clichéd, how do you develop it, how do you get it to work out. Most of the answers have to do with looking at things from a different angle from the one the writer is stuck in (which is why plot-noodling is so useful – other people are pretty much automatically looking at things from a different angle than whatever angle you’re using).
But mainly the answer to all those how-can-you-be-sure questions is: You can’t. Not before you get started and do some work on them. And if you fiddle with things enough, you can get practically anything to work if you really want to. It depends on what you’re willing to do.
So the first step is diagnosis – why doesn’t this plot make sense? Why does it seem underdeveloped, broken, clichéd, whatever? Sometimes the author has been a little too clever about getting characters in trouble and can’t figure out how to get them out. Sometimes, the plot hinges on an event that, when it comes to writing it, requires a well-established character to act totally out-of-character. Sometimes, you realize partway in that the plot as originally conceived violates some fundamental principle of your worldbuilding, or worse yet, of common sense. Sometimes the chain of logic is broken somewhere – there’s no reason to introduce the zombie apocalypse to get the hero moving because he’s already hot on the trail of the kidnapped goldfish.
Whatever the problem, you can’t fix it until you know what it is, at some level of detail greater than “there is a problem with this bit.” Asking other people often helps; at the very least, if eight other people tell you there’s no problem with a bit that you know in your heart has something wrong with it, you can take comfort in the thought that even if you never do figure out what’s wrong, hardly anyone else will notice.
Once you know where the problem is, you get to the hard part: changing your mind about the story. Because you can’t fix most plot problems by dinking around with your phrasing or rearranging your paragraphs. Something is going to have to be ripped out and redone, and it’s probably going to be painful. If you’re very lucky, you will only have to add a connecting bit – it’s really the zombies who are behind the goldfish kidnapping! – but most of the time, it’s going to be a lot uglier than that. You may have to delete whole scenes and chapters – the first time I messed up this way, I had to delete seven chapters to get back to the point where the plot had gone wrong because a character had given an out-of-character answer.
No writers I know enjoy doing this. Some of them hate it to such an extent that they simply refuse to change anything they’ve already written. They’re like the couple who wanted a baby and needed a room for the nursery, but they didn’t want to give up the den, they still needed the spare bedroom, the home office was non-negotiable, they couldn’t put the baby in the kitchen or their own bedroom, there was no room to build on, they couldn’t afford a new house…eventually, someone has to ask, do you really want a baby after all?
You can’t change without changing. If a plot or subplot is broken, there will be important ways in which the story is not the same once you fix it. Maybe the character’s ultimate success will change – instead of becoming king, he knows himself well enough to turn down the crown. Maybe the whole story will shift from being about the quest to being about the politics or the people waiting back home. Maybe the character would really be more interested in her career than romance, so that subplot won’t work without a different ending. Maybe you have to ditch three-quarters of the opening or shift to another viewpoint character in order to get the story headed where you want it.
When you’re faced with this kind of situation, you have two choices once you’ve figured out the problem: 1) You can go back to the problem point and fix that, and go on from there without worrying too much about the way you originally thought things would go, or 2) You can go back to the problem point and revise everything up until then so that the problem goes away and the plotline will continue on its original track. Either way, something is going to change.
You’re the best. And you always give an honest answer. I suppose it’s an opportunity rather than a punishment, to go back and fix all the shaky unconvincing bits. I will not cry. Back to work.
The zombies kidnapped the goldfish! Lol. It’s amazing how often that kind of connection fixes massive problems- and how obvious the connections seem once you’ve think of them. I spend a lot of time smacking myself on the forehead going `why didn’t I think of that BEFORE?’
Cara – No, no, you’re allowed to cry when you have to rip out seven or nine or fourteen chapters, or when you realize that a beloved subplot has to go. You just have to then go ahead and rip it up anyway, because that’s what’s best for the story. The good news is that I’ve never been sorry afterward, because the story has come out so much better. Even the time when it was fourteen chapters and I took nine months to nerve up to doing the ripping-out.
Chicory – Sometimes you need an outside brain to point out those connections to you. I’ve done it for other writers lots, but when it comes to my own stuff, I still need other people to point things out to me sometimes.
The first time you messed up — when you deleted seven chapters because a character gave an out of character answer — was that by any chance Magicians’ Ward?
There’s nothing worse than knowing something is wrong, but a) not being able to figure out what it is, and b) not being able to find someone who’s willing and/or able to help figure out what it is.
Right up there with with wanting a meat-and-potatoes critique and getting a line edit. There’s no point in a line edit until the meat and potatoes are done right.
Jessica – No, actually it was Shadow Magic, my very first novel. I did it again with Magician’s Ward, only worse – that time, it was thirteen or fourteen chapters.
Meg – Almost. Even worse than knowing something’s wrong but not being able to figure it out is when you know it’s wrong, neither you nor anyone else can figure out the problem (and really, nobody else believes there IS a problem), and you’re under contract and have to deliver the thing. And even the editor can’t figure it out, so it gets published that way. 🙂
This sure sounds painful! I hate having to cut LOADS of work.
One tip I will offer is “Don’t delete the work!” cut it out and paste it into another document. You never know when it will come useful again.
For example if it’s a subplot that has been cut then you might be able to rework it and turn it into a short story.
Also, I bet you have a brilliant paragraph or two (a description maybe) that you could simply rip for somewhere else in your novel.
Bottom line: Don’t delete it!