How is a plot born?

Does it spring from the ghostly image of a pretty girl peering through a rain-pebbled window? Does it rise from the low rumble of a night train straining up the last long slope into a sleeping town? Perhaps it grows from the echoing laughter of a child long lost to misfortune or mystery.

Does a plot come from a memory … or is it born in the heart?

Until I made the transition from writing short stories to novels, I paid little attention to plots. In fact, to me the plot of a story was more of what writing academics call the theme … so, I didn’t spend much time labeling (or mislabeling) the guts of a story.

The plot of my first novel, Rodriguez and the Giant Killers, resulted from one of the oldest clichés known to writers – “It was a dark and stormy night …” Don’t groan! I was conducting a self-exercise in building a picture, or scene, from a basic sentence – in other words, the writers’ version of doodling. It was never meant to be more than the single typewritten page that gathered virtual dust in my computer’s story file. Only after I decided years later that it was time to “pen” a full-size novel did I run across that lone page and see it for what it could be … a beginning.

How was the plot born? Buried deep within that original preface were the words “… back before the giants came.” From there, the plot moved along at different paces, sometimes bounding ahead of me as I tried to capture it on paper. Sometimes hiding in the shadows while I strained to pick up its fading scent. More than once I found myself thumping my fist against the plot’s motionless chest, yelling, “Live, dammit, live!” (Not good when your wife is watching.) Inevitably, I had to backtrack to the last place the plot had been spotted alive, toss everything that came after, and seek a new path.

As it was my first novel, I made ALL the mistakes that writing coaches will tell you not to make when developing your plot. By the time I found that advice, it was too late, but I think writing and finishing those first novels were great lessons. The mistakes taught me how to do it better the next time.

Most of all, I learned that like real life, few stories are linear. A story’s plot should flow along a natural path, like water down a mountainside. Rocks, trees, sudden rises in terrain, and other obstacles will block the path. Animals and people will drink from it. Rain will swell it and the sun will steal it away – but it is instinctively seeking a path to the sea.

In Rodriguez and the Giant Killers, Captain Anthony Rodriguez’ plot flowed much the same way. Early in the story, young Rodriguez is thrust into a world of chaos during the invasion of his homeland. That unforeseen event leads to terrible consequences, and sends him on a quest to save the people he loves and the land he calls home. He can’t know that he’ll learn much more about himself along the way as he peers into the shadows of his own murky past. But, like the water on the mountainside, it is how he handles the twists and turns that he faces along the journey that defines the plot of his story.

In the end, is he the same man who started down that path? You will have to read it to find out, but in my own life experiences, I don’t know anyone whose life ended up the way they first planned it. So, as you build your plot, ask yourself, who or what will stand in your character’s path? And, more importantly, will your character reach their sea – or will destiny lead them to a strange new place in the world?