#12: Plot: Build Your Plot

Writing Tutorial #11 does not describe you as a writer. In fact, you get cold chills considering "winging it." You need everything worked out before you start writing. This is a technique created by Frederick C. Davis that I found in The Mystery Writer's Handbook. He describes it in detail using the brainstorming of his novel Drag the Dark featuring Schuyler Cole and Lucas Speare of the Cole Detective Agency.

Davis calls his technique "a systematic procedure for putting together the substances of a story and developing its dramatic values in such a manner as to produce almost automatically a complete working synopsis." (Handbook 20) In short, this is a process that guides your writing until you feel your plot is finished. You start writing and don't stop; what you do is switch from the planning to the actual draft. And you are free to adapt this process in anyway that serves you better.

The six things to start with:

1. One or more ideas for a story. Davis recommends grabbing a handful out of you idea file that seem promising. If you use them, great. If you don't, they go back in the file.


2. A plot pattern in mind. Know your genre, what type of story you want, novel or short, stand-alone or part of a series. You remember these questions from http://fanfictiongarret.bookwormlibrary.us/node/27 ">Writing Tutorial #2.


3. Something to write with.


4. Many paper clips.


5. A plentiful supply of scratch pads.


6. Desk and a mind cleared for work.

The original idea for the story needs to be written down. I use note cards, but any type of paper will do. Just make sure you have enough room to write down your ideas. Judge according to your handwriting. Here's my initial idea:

Jack goes crazy, erases Charley's memories of the bros and convinces her they are married.

Now you are in the middle of the brainstorming process. As you study the possibilities of your idea and questions come to mind, you find answers that will suggest possible story developments and uncover plot needs. Everything is written down as a note. The note triggers another note. And another, and another. All thinking is done on paper so nothing is lost. (This is where a clean desk is a boon.) Do not write the notes in order. Just scribble until the flow of ideas stop. Then shuffle through the notes until it starts again.

The first question that occurs to me is: How does Jack erase Charley's memories? Karbunkle does it so Charley can't help the bros anymore. Actual erasing takes place offstage. And Charley learns the truth in Karbunkle's lab, leading to a confrontation between her, Jack, and the bros.

Why? What drives Jack crazy? A rejection from Charley combined with a backlash reaction with what Angela Parmesana did to him. All aliens are bad including the bros. Especially the bros because Charley loves them more than she loves him.

How can I work in this antagonism since the story will only slightly feature the bros? Well, the eraser process wasn't complete and Charley's memories of the bros keep surfacing in dreams. Also gives a "Twilight Zone" feel about her life. Let's really stress this; make the opening scene looking at the beach scene from "A Mouse and His Motorcycle" episode from Charley's POV.

What other ways can Jack with Karbunkle's help enforce the fake memories that he'll feed Charley to fill in her amnesia. Karbunkle grows them a child. A real kid made from Jack's sperm and Charley's egg, only artificially aged to about 4. A little girl looks like Charley with Charley's green eyes and Jack's color hair. So now I have a new character, Hannah.

This inspires a scene between Charley and Vinnie, after Charley has come back to the bros. Vinnie already doesn't like Jack, really doesn't like what he did to Charley, and Hannah is Jack's child.

"So what do we do with the science experiment upstairs?" Vinnie's thumb jerked at the ceiling.

Charley's green eyes flashed with anger. "She's not a science experiment! She's my daughter. It doesn't matter how she got here. All she knows is that I'm her mommy and I'm not losing her for anything!"

But how is Charley going to get to Karbunkle's lab? Somebody has to point her in the right direction. Somebody who she'd know from before the bros entered her life and her memories of he or she haven't been altered much. Chef Andy, the hot-dog diner owner from "High Rollin Rodents." He witnessed the ugly scene between Jack and Charley, the one she told him that they had no romantic future together. He can also tell her how worried her friends are--the bros. And he keeps Hannah when Charley breaks into Karbunkle's lab. Even I have problems putting a four-year-old in the middle of a firefight.

And the bros will meet up with Charley in Karbunkle's lab. But Charley doesn't know them. Let's say she picked up a gun from the Last Chance for protection. So how will this first real meeting go?

The tan-furred humanoid pulled off his helmet, revealing clearly the mouse stamp on his facial features. He raised his empty hands and took another step closer.

The muscles in Charley's arm quivered but the gun stayed aimed at the bare chest underneath the black leather vest. "Don't come any closer!"

But Charley almost met up with the bros before, a near miss. This is a perfect spot to use another idea I had. Humorous idea: the wreckage that befalls when all three mice go to a grocery store. The bros will follow the amnesiac Charley and Hannah to the grocery store.

When you can't come up with something, write yourself a NEEDED note. Like these:

NEEDED: a way to keep Charley from meeting the bros face to face until they meeting in Karbunkle's lab. Which means she can only see them from a distance at the grocery store.

NEEDED: Bad fight between Jack and Charley that triggers Charley to leave him and take Hannah with her. Want to be really evil because no one has seen the dark side of my imagination yet.

When the train of thoughts stops and shuffle through your notes, NEEDED notes will usually provide a new trigger.

Where do the paper clips come in? Bundle related notes together. Davis eventually files his in a note card box separated by index tabs. Some to the groupings he uses: "Basic Situation, Opening, Developments, Revelations, Subclimaxes, Characters, Data, Needed." (Handbook 29)

Work through all your notes backwards and forwards until you have supplied all the story needs, filled out your story pattern, and have finished the plot. The last step is to put your notes in narrative sequence. You rearrange and rewrite the notes because you need to place them in different parts of the narrative, expand generalizations, throw out what notes are no longer necessary. Finally, you are left with a stack of notes that has a brief synopsized narrative of the entire story. Character notes and technical details have separate piles. You set the pile next to your computer, write exactly what you have told yourself on the first note, and toss the note. When the notes are gone, you will have a finished manuscript.