Create a Plot Clinic by Holly Lisle

Author:Holly Lisle [Lisle, Holly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-03-11T08:00:00+00:00

And so on. You can look at this and almost hear the 'bap, bap' of the ball going back and forth, with yes and no volleying steadily.

At some point, you'll hear a tiny subliminal click, and you'll realize you know what happens. For me, that click gave me this line-for-scene:

Anna, pursued by hired thugs, runs to Friend X for help and safety, and Friend X is waiting for her with a gun and some black plastic bags.

That's about as bad as your day needs to get. I don't have the name for Friend X yet, because I haven't yet built any of Anna's friends. But between various incarnations of Marine friend, cop friend, childhood friend, ex-boyfriend friend, and socialite friend, I have some nice options.

You won't ever hit a point in plotting your story where you can't stop for a game of Pong to get a fresh perspective. Pong is also a good way to come up with plot twists, because your Muse is taking whatever assumptions you're making and arguing against them.

Exercise: Pong

Set up your character (or yourself) on one side of your paper and your Muse on the other, and state one thing you think is true about the problem you're having.

Example:

[MC name] doesn't know anything about her husband's affair.

Let your Muse volley. You choose some part of that volley to respond to, and your Muse will offer an argument.

Work until you suddenly realize how you can solve the problem.

Write a line-for-scene sentence on a plot card and pin it to your board.

Chase Your Tail

This is for times when you have no clue what is stalling you. You can't formulate a statement about the problem, you can't think of a thing you can fix. You're simply sitting there, staring at the screen, awash in discontent and the certainty that something is wrong.

Write the names of your characters and words that are central to the part of the plot you already have on a sheet of paper.

In my case, I get:

Anna

Jim

Lucy

Bob the corpse Marine friend Female cop friend Male cop friend Childhood boyfriend Next door neighbor killer

basement Smith Building evil videos black plastic bags

dead lawyer wedding videos thug

layers of deceit and so on...

Now, depending on how into this you want to get, you can either say good enough, or cut out each name or word or phrase and dump the lot of them into your hat.

Either way, close your eyes, put your pen down on a word or draw it from the hat.

Write the word on a sheet of paper, or type it into your word processor.

Write for one to three minutes on that word, not allowing yourself to stop writing, to back up, or to correct. Immediately choose by random means a second word from your list. Start writing again, connecting this word to what you were writing about before. Write for two or three minutes; then pick another word which you connect to the subject you've been writing about with the first two. Run with this pattern

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