After talking last time about respecting the writing community, now I think it’s time to get into some advice about actually writing! I’d like to focus on plotting, as in, deciding what actually happens in your story.
Say you have a story, and you’re not sure where to go with it. Then, out of nowhere, a plot development occurs to you. It’s perfect: it touches themically on everything that’s gone before while upping the stakes to dizzying new heights. It’s also cruel, horrifying and will utterly destroy your poor dear character.
“Oh, no!” you think. “I can’t possibly do that!”
DO IT.
Let’s face it, it’s already done. If you have such a strong emotional reaction to your idea, then that idea is the only thing that can happen. It means that you just touched the third rail that gives your story life. If your character’s journey doesn’t affect you, why should anyone else care?
Director and playwright George Abbot said that your job as a writer is to chase your character up a tree and throw rocks at them (and yes, I did have to look up where that quote is from). That “I can’t possibly!” reaction means that you just picked up a big, pointy rock that is really going to hurt when you hurl it into their face. But that’s what we’re here for, and that’s why you have to go ahead and throw it, sweetie, as hard as you can.
Plot is what happens. Story is why it happens, and what happens because of it. Stories are about change, and changes don’t happen for no reason. People don’t change for no reason. They change because something forces them to change; something painful and, above all, personal. That development you just dreamed up is daunting because it hits your character right where they live; their worst nightmare, their secret shame, their deepest trauma. And that’s where the stakes are.
If anyone’s going to care what happens in your story, then it has to hurt.
After all, why did you give your character a deepest nightmare, if you’re not using it to torture them?
Harriet Phoenix 