How To Grow Plot From Character

In order to understand what actions will effect a transformation in your character, there are a few things one needs to know. Debra Dixon addresses this brilliantly with her concept of Goal, Motivation, and Conflict, and if you haven’t read the book, I highly, highly recommend it. She talks at length about needing to have both an external GMC (plot) and internal GMC (internal growth arc).

Goal – What your character wants.
Motivation – Why do they want it? Why are they pursuing this goal?
Conflict – What is standing in their way.

Ideally you should be able to answer those questions on an external and internal level for your character.

One of the things I constantly stumble over is giving my protagonists an actual, bona fide goal. It takes me a while to figure out what they want, and sometimes I realize they don’t actually want anything. Or at least anything that they could articulate to themselves or anyone else.

However, it finally occurred to me that sometimes simply allowing oneself to want something can be a dramatic act all its own. In fact, I wonder if that’s one of the reasons I write kids books, because they are immersed in learning they have the right and the power and eventually the responsibility to act, not just observe or get carried along. Maybe that thematic issue kind of clusters around kids books. Or maybe that’s just one of my personal themes. Not quite sure about that…

Anywho, sometimes I have more luck by asking myself what my characters needs or longs for. Those words seem less self aware than goal, and especially with young protagonist, having an unarticulated need seems a more realistic way to drive their actions. At least initially.

Often I will start with just the germ of an idea; What if a girl could see curses and black magic on artifacts in a museum that no one else could see? Then I have to step back and decide what kind of girl would have this skill, and how it would affect her. Then I massage and poke and scratch my head until I have at least some semblance of GMC. For Theo, it was pretty easy.

Goal: To neutralize black magic and curses before it harmed anyone
Motivation: Because it was nasty, vile stuff that could cause great harm to those she loved; plus she was the only one who could see it, so the responsibility landed in her lap.
Conflict: She was only a child, with few resources; no one would believe her if she tried to explain; and certain bad guys wanted to let use that magic for their own gains.

Knowing that allowed me to begin to design the framework of the structure of the novel; what the inciting incident would be, what the turning points might look like, how the conflict and tension would rise.

But that was only the externals. To give the novel depth, I had to find a way to put what I knew about Theodosia emotionally onto the page. These physical events had to force her to some new understanding or awareness on her journey to becoming an adult.

I knew that one of the things that Theodosia hungered for was her parent’s attention as she was often overlooked. (Luckily, there was a fairly hands-off child rearing philosophy in 1907, so her parents didn’t appear to be horrid people.) She also wanted their professional respect, perhaps simply an extension of the above, since her parents were consumed by their professions, she felt that would be the best way to gain their attention, with her professional expertise.

For me to be able to develop the internal GMC, I often have to look to my character’s wounds or scars; what is lacking in their life, what hole are they trying to plug up, for those are often what drive our actions. So the internal GMC might look something like this (and notice how I word them differently so they make sense to me):

Goal (Emotional need/longing/desire): To be reassured that her parents really do care about her.
Motivation (Why she has that longing/Emotional Wound): Emotionally abandoned by her parents
Conflict (What prevents her forward growth): Parent's preoccupation with selves, child-centric perspective

Dixon has designed a nifty little GMC table that looks a lot like a tic-tac-toe square and goes something like this:




Can you fill in those blanks for your character?

A couple of additional things: Goals can be to NOT want something, to NOT move, or NOT go to a new school. They can also change over the course of a book as they character grows or acquires new knowledge.

Plots - Getting Started

If, as Julia Cameron says, transformation happens through action, then plot is simply the actions our characters go through in order to grow and change.

Of course, in real life, we all stumble upon events and revelations, epiphanies and sudden tragedies, all of which can move us to change. But fiction is different than real life. Fiction has to make sense. Therefore, it is up to the author to take their characters through a sequence of actions that force those characters to grow or transform.

Now some writers do this instinctively. Others have such beautiful prose or skillful characterization that we never even notice a lack of plot in their writing. But not all writers—or not me at least—possess that innate skill. I have to work at it.

The thing is, we have all been studying plot since our parents first began reading Good Night Moon or Harold and the Purple Crayon to us. Ever since our first cartoon, we became consumers of story, and most classic story comes with a plot.

In its most simple form, plot is merely a beginning, a middle, and an end. And really, as a reader that’s all we need to know. Well, that and whether or not the combination of beginning, middle, and end works for us.

But as writers, or more specifically, writers for whom this is not instinctive, we need to break it down a little more.

First Act - Beginning
Second Act - Middle
Third Act – End

And as long as one act pulls the reader along into the next act, you’re golden. But as writers, how do we make that happen. I think the first step is to understand the structure behind the structure.

First Act (Awareness of problem/situation)
Second Act (1st Attempt to solve or fix the problem/situation)
Third Act (Second Attempt to solve or fix the problem/situation)
Fourth Act (Third and successful attempt to solve or fix the problem/situation)

Wait a minute, you say! I thought we were talking about three acts! For me and my process, it is hugely helpful to break that middle act into two parts, thus Act Two becomes in my mind Act Two and Three. The reason for this is that I think the middle of the book is a very important moment, one that deserves to be included in the structuring of the novel.

So that gives us a vague idea as to what different acts should entail, but still maybe not enough to actually start writing the dang book.

But first, some definitions so you won’t all think I’m speaking Greek.

Story – a narrative with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Plot – the physical actions of your story that drive the narrative; the choice of events the author uses to propel their character’s growth.
Acts – the sections of a story; beginning, middle, and end. Usually mini stories within the bigger story framework that build toward the ending.
Arcs – the forward trajectory taken by the plot or character.
Turning Points – scenes that come at the end of an act and propel the reader into the next act, either by a dramatic revelation, ramping up the stakes, increasing the tension, or spinning the story off in a new direction.

Now let’s take a look at all the structural components of a plot, from a writer’s perspective.

First Act
Set up - Section of the story that gives a sense of who the character is, what is missing from their lives, and what they will need to change and grow.

Inciting Incident - what forces the character to engage in the elements of the plot, where the trouble starts, the day that is different

1st Turning Point (TP) - the scene that propels the reader into the next act


Second Act
Increasing Conflict/Dramatic Action – action that has some meaning or purpose within the greater context of the story as opposed to simple physical action.

Rising action – scenes increase in dramatic tension as the plot progresses. Also causality. This happens, because something else happened, which in turn forces even more conflict to happen.

2nd TP - MID POINT - this scene propels the story into the next act, but it also is the point of no return, the hero cannot go back to who they were, must go forward, which is why I think it needs to be marked on its own.


Third Act
Continued Rising Action (Protagonist and Antagonist engaged in escalating struggle)

Final TP - the moment when everything coalesces to propel the hero toward the final showdown


Fourth Act
Climax – the final confrontation (either internal or external but preferably both) that the story has been building to.

Resolution – how the newly changed character, using skills and knowledge acquired through the course of the story, fixes the problem or comes to terms with the situation.
~ ~ ~

So that are the basic components of a plot. Tomorrow I’ll talk about how to go about creating them from your what you know about your characters or story idea. And please feel free to ask questions in the comments!

Pick a Card, Any Card

So, after wrestling with my plot and trying to figure out where in the hell I am with it and the many threads I have going, I gave up and went back to the basics: index cards. And not just any ol’ index cards, but colored ones. Perhaps I am more visual than the average author but boy, nothing screams obvious plot holes to me like seeing all the threads laid out in brightly colored hues.

It’s an incredibly simple system, I merely write a one line description for each scene on an index card. The one trick is that I choose different colored cards, depending on what plot thread or subplot the scene pertains to.

So here you can see my first and second acts laid out on the kitchen island (and yes, every writer needs a spouse who will build them a kitchen island for laying out plot cards). The first act is in the background and the second act in the foreground.


It becomes immediately clear that the pink, yellow, and green scenes are on the skimpy side. That most often translates into: I have dropped those plot threads or not fully developed them.

Here is the second act:


While all the colors are present in the second act, the pink ones indicate scenes which focus on my heroine's personal growth. And since this is a 1st person book about her, uh, clearly I need to look at that. And while it's true that all scenes should accomplish multiple tasks, if nothing else, I have to go back and review some of the other colored scenes and be sure that my heroine is the one driving the action, even if they pertain to one of the other threads. And that green card, well, that represents actions taken by my antagonist, and while his identity is hidden from the reader until the last act, he does need to be engaging more with the heroine, even if his hidden motives remain unclear. So, not too bad, but definitely needs some tweaking.

And then we get to the first act. Oy!


No green, at all, which is a real problem because I need to get that antagonist acting and engaging in the first act, and he is completely missing. I also like to at least mention all the plot threads that will be in play during the book in the first act, so I also need to get at least one yellow card in there.

But the beauty of this system is, it all becomes immediately clear what is missing. Of course, I still have to figure out how to fix it...but now I know what to concentrate on.

Strucutre: Where You Least Expect It

Lots of times when talking about plot or structure, some writers recoil, feeling as if such aspects of craft are merely devices, templates, if you will, for those who are not skilled enough to write a character driven book.

Obviously, I don’t hold the same opinion. But what is also true is that structure can be so integral to the story and so much a part of its very fabric, that the reader is never even aware of it. I thought I’d use a couple of picture books as examples, as people often (mistakenly) assume that something as short as picture books don’t really require structure or plots.

One aspect of structure is the concept of causality—of the events of the story building on themselves, creating a tighter and tighter spiral that the main character must deal with. [A] happens, then the character tries [this], which makes things worse, because…

There really is no better illustration of this concept than If You Give A Moose A Muffin by Laura Joffe Numeroff. (Her If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, works well to illustrate this, too.)

In the book, our protagonist gives the moose a muffin in a misguided attempt to get rid of it. But this makes things worse, because then the moose wants jam to go with it. But that makes things worse because they are so tasty he wants more and more. Until they are all gone and it’s time to go to the store, which is even worse because now he needs to borrow a sweater, then needs to mend it, and on and on in a great big rolling snowball of complications. That, my friends, is structure. It is subtle; a charming, integral element of the story, but structure, nonetheless.

A second terrific example, and perhaps my favorite, is Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. That simple, less than 500 word book, encompasses the entire Hero’s Journey. Check it out:

1) The Ordinary World. Max dons his trusty wolf suit and gets into trouble
2) The Call to Adventure.Max is sent to his room, where a forest appears
3) Refusal of the Call. But Max doesn't do anything until it grows even more
4) Mentor. Whoever sent the boat...
5) Crossing the First Threshold. Max sails away in that private boat that shows up
6) Tests, Allies and Enemies. Max sails for over a year
7) Approach to the Inmost Cave. The most dangerous place in the Story World. Max arrives where those scary wild things live
8) The Ordeal. And they do their level best to scare the bejeezus out of him. But he stands up to them, see…and stares them down.
9) Seizing the sword. The hero often receives some reward for surviving. And the Wild things make him their king.—the most wild thing of all.
10) The Road Back. The hero must deal with the consequences of all that he/she has done in order to gain the reward. And now the real rumpus starts!
11) Resurrection. This is the second Ordeal, the final confrontation. Then Max, grown lonely and homesick, stands up to them and makes them stop. Not only that, he punishes them--just as he was punished.
12) Return With the Reward. Then a wiser and calmer Max arrives back in his room and found his supper waiting for him.

I just think it’s so interesting to see just how much things like three act structure or the hero’s journey are a part of our storytelling patterns, even before there was a book that talked about it as a guideline for writers. It’s important to keep in mind that the hero’s journey was recognized rather than invented, recognized after analyzing thousands of years worth of myths and legends and tales. It was merely putting a label to the way man had told stories for generations.

Now I think that it’s absolutely true that some writers don’t have to think about structure or plot in order to have it appear in their work (and I try not to hate them too much for that) but neither is plot a four-letter word. I’m just sayin’.

Edited to add:

In honor of Buy Indie Day, I'm going to my local bookstore this morning and buying a copy of Donald Maass's newest book, The Fire in Fiction, to give away in a drawing this month. All you have to do to be entered is leave a comment. How easy is that? Maass's book, Writing the Breakout Novel is one of my bibles, so I'm very excited he has a second book out.