How to Plot Your Book Quickly (The 'Dark Arts' of Writing Prose)
Raise your hand if you hate the word plot. Plot is one of those words that, as my favorite writer George Saunders notes, isn’t very useful for us writers.
Today, I’m going to share a definition of plot that I actually find actionable and tell you how I use that definition to write my novels. I’ve used it to write and publish three novels and counting.
It’s also going to help you plot your book quickly. Ready? Let’s go.
When I first wanted to write a novel, I had NO idea what I was doing. So I googled how many words are a novel. Google told me 70,000. So I wrote that many and then stopped.
Did it have a plot? Well, it did in the sense that things happened. Every story has a plot in that sense—if plot is just what happens.
But did it have a good plot, meaning one that pulled the reader forward, that kept them turning the pages? Heck no!
I didn’t give that book a good plot until about my tenth draft, when I learned these tactics I’m going to share with you. So here they are.
What defines “good” and “bad” when it comes to plot?
First a definition: a good plot is a series of events in your story that, combined, make the reader want to keep reading.
A bad plot is a series of events that doesn’t. Other things might pull them forward…but it’s not the plot.
I’m of the opinion that if you can write a good plot, you should. Why wouldn’t you want to? It’s not going to hurt your novel to have a good plot.
A book can have a good plot and still be character driven—you get to have both.
It can have a good plot and be literary. It can have a good plot and win the Pulitzer Prize. Plot isn’t cheap, or a trick, or unsophisticated.
It just means you as the writer so effectively chose and linked events that your reader wanted to keep reading to see what happened. And that’s only going to be good for your book—more readers reading it, more readers telling their friends about it.
So how do you do that?
Tip #1: Open with an unsatisfied want
A good plot starts on your first page. We need a hook. This is really important for giving your novel an engine from page one.
Once upon a time, I was under the impression that I needed to write elaborate character bios of my main characters before I started. I now no longer believe that at all.
For me, necessary prep comes down to checking only a few critical boxes, the main one of which is: What does my main character want that they can’t get?
It doesn’t have to be big. It can be as small as a glass of water. But it can’t be easy to get. If it’s a glass of water…why can’t they get it easily?
Maybe they’re stuck in traffic. Or in a desert, if you want to go dramatic and it’s that kind of book. It also doesn’t have to be something so small.
It could be a new job. Or to quit a job they hate. Or the love of the person they’ve been crushing on for years.
Whatever it is, they want it, and because they want it, we have something to wait for… the answer to the question, are they going to get it?
They can fulfill this want by page ten, or twelve, or whatever—I’m not giving you a rule, here, for how long the wish has to go unfulfilled. It certainly doesn’t have to be until the end of the book.
The purpose of the unsatisfied is to hook your reader from the beginning.
In my program, I work with writers on stringing together unsatisfied wants to propel your story forward. But to do that, you have to start with one.
Tip #2: Plant tensions
Things can’t be happy for too long. When I work with writers in my program, The Book Incubator, which you can learn more about by clicking the link at the bottom of this post, I have an exercise I do with people to figure out what comes next in their book.
We make a list of all the existing tensions that are in the story so far. If they can’t come up with any tensions…that’s a problem. We want tension. Tension is really important. It’s what drives a story.
If things are happy for too long in your book, the reader doesn’t have a reason to keep turning the pages.
Think of your favorite story of late—it can be a book or movie or TV show, doesn’t matter. I mean it. Actually stop reading if you need to, but think of it.
Got it?
What’s the tension at the beginning? You’ll be able to think of something. There’s always a tension early on—even in lighter stories, like comedies.
In my novel When You Read This, the major tension is that the main character knows she’s about to die, and she doesn’t think she made the most of her life.
In my novel Privilege, very early on, the main character, who is a college student, is sexually assaulted. The tension becomes: what will happen next? Will he get in trouble? Will he not? How will that affect her?
In my third novel Palm Beach, the tension is that the main character’s husband takes a job for a man she thinks is evil. The question this raises is, what will this do to their marriage?
You get the idea?
Tip #3: Follow the tensions you’ve created
George Saunders, who’s one of my favorite writers, said, “I always describe writing a story as throwing bowling pins in the air and then catching them.”
We can think of this as the 3-act structure, in a way. You gather up the pins—that’s Act 1. That means, plant some seeds.
You throw them in the air—that’s Act 2. That means, exacerbate them, build some tension.
Then, in Act 3, the pins have to fall down somewhere: the tensions you’ve created will be resolved.
This, to me, means that at some point you have to stop creating new tensions and build on the ones you’ve already created.
When I was writing my first novel, before I had the reliable process for writing a novel that I now use and teach, I kept rewriting the draft not realizing what I was doing wrong.
And one major thing I was doing wrong was always adding new tensions instead of building on the ones I already had.
You don’t need to introduce a totally new character and throw in a random kidnapping or a hurricane in the last half of your book if you’ve already built in enough stuff that can explode.
Trust me—in one of my early drafts of When You Read This, I threw in a kidnapping. Luckily, my computer did me a favor and lost that draft.
How do you play into the tensions that are already there in your story?
Well, that’s more than I have time to get into in this post. But if you want to know more, I want to know you, because I think we’re on the same page and I can be helpful to you in writing your book!
Ready to write your book?
When I’m not writing, my mission in life is to help talented writers write their dream books. I love it. I live for it. Because before I published my novels, I first had to figure out how to write one.
It wasn't easy because none of the writing classes I was taking showed me how to actually write a novel. Not until I had a newborn and only a couple of hours to write did I come up with a process.
The process worked. I wrote my entire novel during my 8-week maternity leave. Now, I teach it in my program, the Book Incubator, and it works for dozens of other writers.
If you're curious to know more, I have a free video walking you through my exact process for writing a book.You can get it by clicking below and answering two questions to apply to the program.
You get the video whether you join or not—no pressure to enroll.
Just click below to tell me a little bit about you and your book—you can fill out a form online. I’m so excited to hear from you!
