Graphic by Peg Ihinger
I think of plot as having several different kinds of layers. There’s “what happened” on an external, physical level (which is the action layer that most people think of first when talking about “the plot). But there’s also an emotional layer involving characters’ relationships and/or whatever personal development the protagonist undergoes, which usually gets filed under “character growth” instead of plot. And there’s frequently an intellectual layer involving figuring out how to solve a problem, and sometimes a background layer and/or a thematic layer that affects all of the above even if it doesn’t have anything resembling a plotline of its own.
The main plot layer is usually either the external physical-action layer or the emotional layer, but it can be any of them. Different plot layers have to work together, but they don’t have to work the same way all the time. The underlying layers act as structural support, the way the interfacing layers inside a suit support and shape the cloth that everybody sees, but they can do this by supporting the main layer, acting as a contrasting or even contradictory subtext, or as their own independent subplots. They can be strongly thematically related, reflecting different aspects of the central theme, or they can provide contrast or a look at the down side of the main thematic premise. They can have different structures, as when the physical/action plot layer follows the classic “hero’s journey” structure, but the emotional layer moves in a spiral, returning to the same key points over and over from different directions, the intellectual layer moves steadily like beads on a string, and the background layer is more like the spokes of a wheel, providing support to other layers at different points.
You can get some really interesting results when you develop a plot layer using an unexpected structure. Like applying the “hero’s journey” to the emotional layer, or a spiral structure to the background.
Not all stories involve every possible plot layer, or try to make whatever layers they have all work at the same high level of intensity. Lots of authors focus hard on the one layer they see as central to the story (for instance, the physical/action plot in an adventure, the emotional plot in a Romance, or the intellectual plot in a puzzle mystery or a story of discovery), and pay little or no conscious attention to the other layers.
Frequently, those stories have multiple layers, but the author is doing them by instinct and intuition, rather than deliberately developing them. Which isn’t necessarily a problem most of the time. Still, there are plenty of annoying stories in which how the protagonist solves the problem is totally implausible or unrealistic, which can be due to a failure on the emotional level (“I do not believe the villain would suddenly repent for no apparent reason!”) or the intellectual one (continuity errors, inconsistencies, and many other kinds of plot holes).
Furthermore, if something goes hideously wrong with the emotional layer of an action novel, or the action layer when the main plot is in the emotional layer, it can be hell to find and fix if the author hasn’t noticed that there is any layer other than the main one. So it’s worth being aware of these things
Finally, writers whose natural gift is for writing emotional or intellectual plots often get bullied about “not having a plot” simply because the action layer isn’t the center of the story. Or they bully themselves into thinking that they have to make the action layer central, even if the story doesn’t feel like that in their head.
How much a particular writer has to pay attention to plot layers, and when in the process they have to do it, varies (as usual) with the writer and their process. Some writers work things out as they write (pantsers), or sometimes even later. Others need a good feel for one of the layers (frequently not the action or external plot), and work out the rest as they go (a different kind of pantser).
Which layer is important depends on what’s important about the story for the particular writer. If the important thing is that great final scene when the protagonist bursts into the courtroom yelling “I have the evidence!,” or leads the army to victory, then it’s often the plot layer that needs the most development before getting started. If the important thing is some demonstration of who the protagonist has become (i.e., someone with the courage to burst into the courtyard, or the competence and capability of leading the army), then the emotional layer is probably the one that needs the most development. The protagonist’s willingness and capability could be demonstrated in other places or times, and by other actions and events, so the physical action plot can flex as needed. The protagonist could end up confronting the corrupt lawyer in an office, or demonstrate competence and capability by making a fortune providing crucial military supplies.
When I start writing, I normally have what I think is a solid plot layer (it never actually is); an even solider idea of the worldbuilding/background/backstory layer; and a general idea of whether the emotional layer is going to involve coming-of-age stuff, identity stuff, trust, romance; and a notion of whether the story will involve an intellectual plot or not. The specifics of the emotional and intellectual plot layers (if any) get worked out as I write my first draft, and elaborated during rewriting and revision.
Every so often, my backbrain hands me something…different. Talking to Dragons started with the title and the first sentence: “Mother taught me to be polite to dragons.” I had no plot, no background, no characters, no idea who was talking or what was going on. Sorcery and Cecelia started with the idea of the letter game, picking an alternate-history Regency setting, and deciding on a character, and that was it (because that was what the rules of the Letter Game allowed). The rest, I’ve had backgrounds and plot outlines and a bunch of characters by the time I started writing, even if the seed-crystal ideas started off in completely different places.
I generally try to go for three layers. Using part of Ms. Wrede’s example above:
1) The protagonist bursts into the courtroom, and demonstrates who the antagonist is, and what they were doing;
2) The protagonist bursts in, and between dialog and internal monologue demonstrates how much he or she has grown over the course of the story; and,
3) The protagonist bursts in, and demonstrates how the world got to be what it is where this story could happen.
Conflict/problem on the societal/story, personal, and world(-building) levels.
How well I succeed at them is for readers to decide, of course…
One of my whimsical efforts, The Adventures of Princess Onesie and Fairy Friend, popped into my head for no reason a little while ago.
Then I realized there was a reason, because I immediately connected the novella with Ms. Wrede’s entry today.
The story is mainly on a silly level (Unspeakably Gruel, Hob Tuit and other characters), and yet has some serious side elements (authentic – as far as I could make them – lyrics from madrigals and other early music, plus some blues too) and then an even more serious layer underneath, about self-image and living life.
So there’s even more kinds of layers possible than plot, emotional, thematic, etc.
I recently read the first three chapters of WIP (as a chunk, probably for the first time ever) and…they don’t work. Last night I finally figured out why, which is that a scene I’d written out of order and put at the start of Chapter 2 works fine for the action plot but is impossible for the emotional/relationship plot. It would have to go *much* later for that. I’m happy that now at least I know what’s wrong–it started out as “Ugh! This doesn’t work!” which is demoralizing when not accompanied by any idea why.
I may have to comb that scene out into two hanks and move one of them away. Or just write a new scene, not sure yet. Something has to go at the start of Chapter 2, and definitely not what’s there now.
I have actually written one novel in order, scene by scene. I don’t know why I can’t do that all the time, it seems so much easier. But generally I can’t. So I have this bead-stringing process, and sometimes it runs into trouble. –Though for me bead-stringing is *fun*; you can end a session and think “Wow, out of a jumble of scenes I now I have three more chapters, look at that!” Maybe that’s why I write out of order? Terrible reason, if so….
The worst bead-stringing disaster I ever had was three scenes, each of which clearly happened after the other two. I think I had to throw everything away and rewrite that section from near-scratch, because there was no fixing it. Annoying how you always lose some nice bits of writing when you have to do that, because they can’t be made to fit in the new version.
Actually, your bead-stringing disaster sounds absolutely fascinating to me–like an Escher version of a story. In other words, if you can make it work on purpose, it could be really cool.
The trick, of course, is making it work without changing the timing.
Hm.
I guess _Rashomon_ shows one way to do that–all narrators are unreliable, and differently so, and the reader/viewer needs to try to work out what actually happened. I think Rashomon is clever on an intellectual level but I didn’t enjoy it. So maybe not the thing for me.
_Permutation City_ has different versions of the same events actually happening–no unreliable narrator, except for the implicit assertion that “I” is the same person every time–and gets one of the most chilling moments I’ve ever read out of that.
_Groundhog Day_ I guess is a variant on that one: the events really did happen that (those) ways, but not in the same continuity.
If not those, I’m not sure what you’d be doing with it. Maybe a mystery: the characters remember all three scenes and know they are incompatible, but which one(s) really happened and where did those other, false memories come from? That I could maybe write. (Rashomon, I don’t think I could.)
Hm! Book 3 is maybe about mind games. This could fit. Thank you!
I’d read it.
Dear Wrede;
I have two questions for you:
Is Cimorenes story a heroines Journey and coming-to-age -story?
What lasersäde can you find in a story, when a romania, although fearsome Vampire is Release to be at daytime the female protagonists boringcourger/future husband?
1) If you are asking whether I deliberately wrote Cimorene’s story as a Hero’s Journey or a Coming-of-age story, the answer is No. I don’t start with structure. If you are asking whether someone could analyze the story now that it’s written using either of those templates, the answer is Yes, because you can fit almost anything into those structures when you’re looking at the finished product.
2) In one sentence, you already have an obvious action-adventure plot layer (secrets, vampire-stalking-protagonist) and a romance/emotional plot-layer (between the protagonist and the vampire/future-husband). How you choose to develop the story will determine which is the central plot and which is the supporting one, but the way this is set up, they’re both right there. There are plenty of other layers that could end up part of the story–any time you have a long-lived vampire character, there are possibilities for historical and/or thematic layers, or an action plot that ends up involving something other than vampire-slayers (espionage, for instance).
Layers are just a way of looking at stories. If you find working with it useful, use it. If you don’t get it, or tend to approach stories in a holistic way, ignore it. There is no single way that works for all writers.
I mean: What layers.Why my Phone e doesn,t White right?
Maybe turn off auto-complete. It’s only helpful if you are writing what the phone expects you to write….
English is not Mother language f8r me and my Phone.
Finally, writers whose natural gift is for writing emotional or intellectual plots often get bullied about “not having a plot” simply because the action layer isn’t the center of the story. Or they bully themselves into thinking that they have to make the action layer central, even if the story doesn’t feel like that in their head.
I think I did that with my first novel. There’s a spy-mission drama going on in the background/on the sidelines (because the MC can’t be involved in it, for Reasons) that was supposed to help prop up the middle bit where not enough is going on, and that I intermittently pushed into the foreground because, well, action. And it’s not bad, exactly, but I don’t think it really does what the book needs, and it’s definitely not in support of the emotional/ethical layer which is the main plot.
One of these days I’m going to have to go back and revisit that.