Plotting

There and Back Again --

Plotting the Bilbo Baggins Way

By Stephanie Mittman

In my last article I thoroughly convinced you that a plot outline was a necessary evil to which writers wishing to be published would do well to adhere. You, convinced beyond measure, but confused and disheartened, put down the article muttering something akin to, "Sure! But how?"

So here's my handy-dandy step-by-step guide to plotting your best seller.

First, you need a boy and a girl and a premise. (That's the thing that's keeping them apart, providing conflict--the hook on which your story is hung.) Let's make one up. Abigail, poor but beautiful, wants more than anything to be a writer. In her head she makes up stories which surely beat her real life at the shirtwaist factory. So what if she's a little out of touch with reality--the right man would find that endearing, and his heart would go out to this poor-but-talented young woman.

Well, put that "right" man in your book and you don't have much of a story. They fall in love on page two and nothing keeps them apart so the book ends on page three after the obligatory--but tasteful--love scene.

So then obviously Sven, our hero, can't have a fanciful bone in his entire big, muscular body. His father was a dreamer and because of it the family nearly starved to death. In fact, his mother died because they couldn't afford a doctor due to his father's ridiculous schemes and unworkable plans.

Now here's the trick--you skip right to the end and start working backward! This being a romance, Sven has to learn that not every dream spells disaster and that without a dream, life isn't worth living. And most importantly, he has to fall in love with Abby.

But they have nothing in common, so what in the world could bring them together? Well, Sven could work at the factory, couldn't he? And if the owner of the factory had a son who was interested in Abigail, but who wasn't worthy of her, and if Sven saw what a louse he was and was driven to protect Abby. . .

OK, so we're getting a skeleton here. Well, anyone who's ever read a romance knows we need a black moment--that place in the book (usually around the next to last chapter) when it's clear that the hero and heroine will never get together and they will both have to spend the rest of their lives miserable because (as the reader and anyone else with eyes in her head knows) these two people alone can make each other happy, can fill that space missing in the other's life and heart.

So I guess that Abigail is going to have to accept the louse's proposal despite Sven's warnings because while Sven has poured cold water on all Abby's dreams of someday writing the Great American Novel, the louse's uncle just happens to be Charles Scribner of Scribner and Sons. Not that Abby's mercenary--it's just that the louse feeds her dreams with praise that the reader sees as vague and barely interested but which Abby, hungry for encouragement, takes as admiration.

But why does the louse want to marry Abby? Or does he? Is he planning to back out at the last minute after his father signs over the business to him now that he's proven that all the fancy women are out of his life for good and that he is truly the man his father wants him to be? (Do I ever take a breath when I'm in the planning stages?)

Now we need some big happening to turn things around. Hmm. . .Did I say she worked in the shirtwaist factory? And what do people think of when they think shirtwaist factory, but fire? And if there's going to be a fire, (during which Sven rescues not only Abby, but her precious manuscript) we better have the louse's father tell the louse not once, not twice, but half a dozen times that the pile of rags needs to be moved away from the furnace.

And if there's going to be a fire, it wouldn't hurt if that was a big fear of Sven's, now would it? In fact, maybe Sven's mother didn't died because they couldn't buy medicine--maybe she died in a fire caused by one of his father's ridiculous inventions, or because his father was thinking about something else and left the lantern burning too close to the curtains.

So we need an early scene in which we see that Sven has a fear of fire so that he can be even more heroic conquering his fears to save Abby.

Now, if Sven could get Abby's manuscript read by Charles Scribner without the louse's help, since the louse hasn't even bothered to submit it, that would be a confirmation that he believes in Abby and her dreams. So obviously Sven has to moonlight at the publishing house.

Of course, this offers the possibility that he has to sweet talk Scribner's secretary, which Abby sees and which convinces her that there is no hope for her and Sven because he is too serious to be merely flirting. If he's given the woman in the restaurant flowers, he must be in love.

Now Sven is nothing if not practical, and he isn't about to waste money on flowers, so, backing up some more, he must have a friend, or must have traded something. Maybe he's always trading one thing for another to get what he wants. So whether he believes it or not, he's actually very creative.

Of course our Abby's probably looking for a bookish type man, not some big manual laborer, so something is going to have to teach her that she can't (oh, I'm so sorry to do this, but the cliche is just begging to come out and I can't stop it!) judge a book by its cover. (Oh, again, I'm sorry!) So Sven might have a grandmother who he indulges in a way that shows the reader the softer side of him that Abby isn't privy to at the beginning of the book.

But I do so hate extraneous people in there for no good reason, so maybe granny was once involved with Scribner. And maybe she, like Sven was practical and wasn't willing to marry a man who dreamed of an empire while he set type for fifteen cents a day.

So does granny regret her decision, or did she marry a practical man who took good care of her and made her happy? And does she warn Sven that a person is who he is and birds of a feather and all that stuff? (I wonder if she's always using cliches and if he buys into them--after all a saying gets to be a cliche because it's true, doesn't it?--And I wonder, too, if Abby comes back at him with opposing cliches--you know, the "bread is the staff of life/man cannot live by bread alone dilemma.)

And does granny get to see Charles again and realize that if you want something hard enough and long enough, if you believe in yourself and apply yourself, your dreams just might come true? And does she learn that a first love is something special and while she was content with Sven's grandfather, some embers never do go out.

And what of the louse's father? We have to fit him in somewhere. And has Abby any family? And is her book any good? And if just being in the same room as Sven sets fireflies to dancing in her belly, we better put 'em in the same room often.

And why would Abby fall for the louse? She must see him doing something she admires. Or misinterprets to be something she admires. Backing up again we have to set that up.

And back and back we go, filling in explanations to why what happens next must happen next. Given a reason, most reader want to believe. No one picks up a book with the intention of throwing it across the room when they are halfway through it. They want to "suspend disbelief" as Coleridge says--you just have to make it easy for them.

So now, with a bit of research and a few more events, we've got the makings of a plot line. It may not be a best seller, but then hopefully your idea is much better than this one--your characters are just the kind that readers fall in love with, your dilemma makes one's blood run faster, and your premise wrings the heart. (If it doesn't, it's back to the drawing board for you!)

Next time I'll ramble on and on about research--what to look for, where to search and when to stop!

Articles Writers Area 

Special Offers for Authors on book promotion and web design

Get 2 BOOKS + a mystery gift  from  eHarlequin.com

 

AUTHORS

The Romance Club Home Page