Finding a plot

I’ve been plot-noodling with a couple of primarily character-centered writers lately, and I’ve noticed that they both have a similar problem. Most of the time, they don’t even see the places where they are dropping plot-hints…and when they do see them, they don’t immediately recognize them. One of them even deletes them, or brushes them aside with spur-of-the-moment explanations when I point them out, because those aren’t the part of the character’s experiences they’re interested in.

Some of the time, that’s fine. If the writer wants to tell the story of a high Georgian stick-in-the-mud who suddenly has to cope with an influx of eccentric French relatives fleeing from the French Revolution, the writer may not want a mysterious diamond necklace dragging the story’s focus off of the rapidly accumulating social faux pas that are driving the stick-in-the-mud to distraction.

More often, though, I’m finding writers who are completely focused on specific character points, leading them to ignore possible plot points and/or pay only perfunctory attention to the things that could become plot points. They treat them as distractions, rather than possibilities, if they even notice them at all. And then they complain that they don’t have a plot.

These folks are so busy elaborating on the emotional entanglements of their major characters that it doesn’t occur to them that, because of how they’ve presented it, a reader will think the mysterious necklace is stolen, and thus an important plot point (and a great jumping-off place for the action plot that they claim to want so very badly). When this is pointed out, their reaction is not to start developing a who-stole-the-necklace-and-why plot. Instead, they try to “clean up the mistake” by having someone immediately pin the crime, correctly, on the most obvious minor character.

This is not a fix, nor is it plot development. If the writer doesn’t want to include a necklace-based plot, they need to rewrite the necklace scenes to remove it completely from the story, or at least to change the treatment of the necklace so that it doesn’t trigger most readers’ “mysterious diamond necklace equals important future plot element” instincts. Playing into the “important future plot point” instinct and then swiftly disposing of the potential plot is deeply unsatisfying, and thus worse than doing nothing at all.

If the writer does want the necklace to be significant, they need to develop an actual subplot that works with the emotional plot that’s the thing they really want to write. That means that the writer has to come up with reasons why the necklace is significant, decide to whom it is significant, and  figure out how its significance interacts with and weaves into the emotional plot.

None of that can be done, however, unless and until the writer realizes that they have unconsciously set something up as a plot hook. Some writers are so completely wrapped up in developing their characters that they don’t even see the possible plot hooks. In this case, they have to either learn to see the hooks, or depend on beta readers to point them out. When a beta reader says “I can’t wait to see what you do with…” or “I bet that this is going to be important” or “X is going to do Y, isn’t she?” about something the writer hadn’t even considered happening, they’re pointing at a potential plot hook that the writer didn’t notice. When a beta reader enthusiastically contemplates all the possible things that could be done with this setup, that character, this relationship, or remarks about how something reminds them of a historical event, myth/legend, or an actual novel/play/movie, it usually means that there’s a possible plot hook in there somewhere.

(In this context, what I mean by “plot hook” is “something the writer can hook a more developed plot or subplot onto.)

When a beta reader identifies a possible plot hook (explicitly, by saying “you can develop this, you know,” or implicitly, by saying “I bet this is important”), the writer has to determine whether it’s a strong hook or a weak one. A weak possible hook is one the writer doesn’t have to do anything about, except make sure not to reinforce its significance if they don’t want to use it. “Not reinforcing its significance” is usually just a matter of not making a point of referring to whatever-it-is again, but the writer can also reduce the hook’s significance by providing a bit more information that downplays or undercuts it. A mysterious diamond necklace seems interesting and significant, but if the character who notices it makes an obvious comment (“That’s a lovely necklace.”) and the character who has it responds with the revelation that it’s just paste, it immediately reduces the reader’s interest. If the necklace never comes up again, the reader won’t be surprised.

Learning to see possible plot hooks is fundamentally a matter of slowing down to consciously and deliberately look for them. One can do this with one’s own writing, but it is often easier to start with something unfamiliar, because one has no preconceptions about where it is or isn’t going. Stopping every chapter or so to consider where you think the plot is going and why—exactly which sentences or scenelets made you, as a reader, decide that the bus driver is a creepy threat, that the king’s advisor is up to something, that someone is passing secret messages or plotting to steal a necklace or trying to destroy the main character’s career or reputation? (TV Tropes can also be good for this, but it is a total time sink…)

Then look for places in your own work where you’ve unconsciously stuck in one of those sentences that triggers a reader’s “I bet that’s significant…” instincts, and decide whether it’s something you want to develop into a plot or subplot, or something you just want to let lie.