Thicken the Plot by Stirring the Pot
The plot is what the story is about – in a one stewing pot.
For example:
The Corn Rots at Midnight is about a young woman who needs big money in a hurry. To get the big bucks, she took on the traditional man’s role of hauling corn; from plowing through 2-foot-deep mud in the field to dropping the load at the cannery. Maneuvering the monster truck and trailer through the muck and mire was easy compared to the mandatory survival skills to stifle the harassment from the male drivers. Can she succeed without breaking a nail, or worse — taking them out?
If you dissect the above ‘story-in-a-nutshell’, you’ll see that it answers all the 5-W’s of the simple plot of a story.
- Who
- What
- Where
- When
- Why
All that’s missing is the ‘How’.
‘How’ is the meat of the tale. That’s the part that the characters have to write. And you have to let them. You are the tool that stirs the pot to keep everything and everybody bubbling through to a lip-smacking, clean-plate end. Are you hungry for a fun and interesting read yet?
If the subliminal hint to go grab a book didn’t side-track you, what if you draw a blank at the ‘How’ to thicken the plot?
Sometimes we need help to spice it up and keep it brewing. And in this day of internet… Google specifically… it’s fast and easy to kick it up a notch.
Ask your search engine to find ‘plot generators’. In a nanosecond you’ll have 168,000,000 options to bust down the infamous writer’s block wall and get your characters moving again. But be careful what you ask for. Use only what you need. Maintain cohesive coherency at all costs lest you wind up editing out 12-grain mush to get to the meat. Readers demand steak and eggs. They flush the mush.
The good news is that search engines aren’t your only option for thickening the plot.
For those of us who don’t always have Google and other search engines at their fingertips, here’s where you can grab books – even a deck of cards (an affiliate link)– to bust through writer’s block and get more meat into your story. Snag the book or cards now, before you head out to your mountain top retreat with no internet.
On that note…
Happy Trails and Tales,
Alexie Linn
P.S. Since this new, finely focused blog is just getting started, the easiest way to get updates is to follow this blog and follow me on Facebook. New posts should appear on the Alexie Linn page – if I’ve held my mouth right… 😊
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