How do you handle plots?

[exequy]

Ever since I started writing stories or poems on paper, which was in early childhood, I had a story or poem (however "bad" or "good") as long as I got the first line down. That's the key for me: Once I have that first line, one that "feels" right, the rest of the piece is as good as finished for me. It flows, and it doesn't stop until it "feels" finished. I have pulled all-nighters to finish pieces to not interrupt this process, and because I will sit at my computer for hours completely committed to it, the pieces often get done very quickly. It's revision that takes time for me.

So that is one major aspect of who/how I am as a writer. Another is that I'm not really a "plot person." Plots have never really mattered to me in terms of literature or movies, and I know that reflects deeply in my writing, too. I've never been that interested in them so I've never learned how to really create them. It's definitely hurt my writing as whether or not you're a "plot person," it's an essential skill to have in terms of storywriting. Regardless of whether you implement it or not, not having that skill deeply limits your ability and potential as a writer.

So, for the "plot people," especially those of you whose strength is plot development, I'm interested in your process and any tips or resources you'd like to share, your opinion on what makes a good plot, and the plot devices you like best and even dislike most, too. I'm especially curious to hear how you create and develop your plots if our processes are similar because I think this process in and of itself makes plot development/creation *possibly* more difficult than if say, there's more overall planning involved.

Thank you for reading & replying if applicable. I am eager to see people's responses.

[Moni]

Not a plot person, so I have similar problems with plots. >> I think the trouble that plots at a very basic level are quite boring, and while you can talk about arcs and conflicts and stuff the simplest level is also the hardest to sit down and just *do*--our brains just want to jump to the more interesting stuff. How interesting a plot is is an emergent property of a lot of these basic structures, kind of like how individual transistors and diodes are kind of boring, but combine them together, and you can make logic gates, and combine *those* together and you can make adders or something, and with a lot of those you can make a computer do something useful! But those transistors and diodes still have to be made somewhere.

I had a media professor who quit writing fiction and stuck to writing poetry because in his words, plot was "quite boring"--there's usually a goal, there's always a hurdle to cross, and you either meet a complication or a conclusion to the story. The simplest story often goes goal->work towards that goal->complication or resolve goal then the cycle repeats or concludes. Large series often lauded for "plot" (even those with decidedly "nontraditional" plot structures ala ASoIaF--maybe even especially large series without a traditional plot macro-structure ala ASoIaF) have a lot of these going on concurrently and in sequence, usually nested within some larger goal. Bad plots often play the "simplest story" on loop without a lot of thought or purpose, and it becomes really easy to guess where everything's gonna go; plots become good when multiples of these "simple stories" weave together meaningfully and conflict, and that's where the good stuff like arcs come from.

This is not all there is to plot, not even close, but it's how I think of it at the simplest level.

Of course overly complex plots aren't inherently better than simpler plots--it all depends on where you want everything to go. I usually stick with simpler plots with my "stories" (they're all dungpoop garbage), mostly because I don't like planning, and the more moving parts a story has, the more unwieldy it becomes. I also don't tend to think about plot in of itself--usually for me character, plot, and setting all blend in and become inseparable from each other, and it takes me a long time to try to untangle them.