That belief comes after completing my last submission when I started with the characters, reincarnated (in part) from the ashes of previous rejections. I thought having pre-fabricated characters would make it easier to find a suitable plot. Twenty-six versions later… starting with a plot has to be the way to go!
By plot I don’t just mean the story idea but the skeleton of the story that can be fleshed out later. A structure that will stop me wandering aimlessly in the wilderness of my imagination. That’s a lot of fun –if all I intend to do with my writing is fill up computer storage with unpublished work but that’s not my goal. So I need a plan. A plot.
So I started with the synopsis BEFORE writing the manuscript. So far that’s working well – the characters have changed names, jobs, opening scenes (within the first page, rather than after 50). Less time wasting, less patchwork passages that don’t connect and less going back to the beginning to re-write everything so I can get the ‘flow’ of the story again.
The plot-map-synopsis beforehand is rather like keeping a budget – it shows just how much substance there is to go on. An idea that plays out like a Hollywood movie in your mind, when written down lets you see that it’s a child’s stick drawing that’s best stuck on the fridge not hung in an art gallery.
Writing a category romance at least makes it easier to start. What am I going to write? A romance. Not a murder. Not a cookbook. But a romance. And a romance is really a fairy tale for adults.
Looking back at some of the fairy tales that have endured for centuries, the plot lines are as follows:
- Sleeping Beauty eats poisoned apple from evil stepmother, gets the kiss of life from handsome prince. Lives happily ever after.
- Cinderella gets a makeover from a Fairy Godmother. Goes to the ball despite all efforts to the contrary by evil stepmother and evil stepsisters. Loses shoe. Prince finds her. Lives happily ever after.
- Ugly duckling turns into beautiful swan and gets the prince
- Beautiful princess kisses cursed frog and gets a prince.
Important ingredients:
Beautiful woman shows her goodness in the way she reacts to evil. Attracts the man next in line to a kingdom. They fall in love despite the odds. Live happily ever after.
Not all fairy tales have a happy ending – think original Little Mermaid. But in a modern romance, it’s important for the Grimms Brothers fairy tale to have a Disney-fied ending. After all, that’s why I consume romances by the dozen (as a reader).
So back to the plot: the best place to start is the ‘who, what, where, when’ of journalism. Except newspaper journalists have to cram those edicts into the first paragraph. The crux of the story has to be in the opening sentence, as that is all most readers will skim on their way to the sports pages, daily horoscopes and celebrity do-dahs.
Of course, you don’t have to cram everything into the first sentence of a novel. Instead of a postage stamp space, you have 200 pages to go forth and conquer.
So back to the plot and who, what, where, when. Now that we have the questions, where do we find the answers. The best place to find them is with the intended publisher and the category (if applicable) of choice. In my case, Harlequin Mills & Boon who advise the following in their Sexy Romance category writing guidelines:
"Although grounded in reality and reflective of contemporary, relevant trends, these fast-paced stories are essentially escapist romantic fantasies that take the reader on an emotional roller-coaster ride. Written in the third person, they can be from the male or female point of view, or seen through the eyes of both protagonists. All are set in sophisticated, glamorous, international locations.
"With its focus on strong, wealthy, breathtakingly charismatic alpha-heroes who are tamed by spirited, independent heroines, the central relationship in a Modern novel is a provocatively passionate, highly charged affair, driven by conflict, emotional intensity and overwhelming physical attraction, which may include explicit lovemaking."
(For more check out www.millsandboon.com.au/authorguidelines.asp)
Who: A spirited independent woman capable of taming a strong, wealthy, breathtakingly charismatic alpha male.
What: Passionate affair, driven by conflict, emotional intensity and overwhelming physical attraction.
Where: Sophisticated, glamorous, international locations
When: Today. Now. Not a hundred years ago.
Then there’s this from the Maryville High School (Tennessee, US) study skills guide to composition, under the helpful heading Laws of Plot:
- Plausibility: the story should be convincing on its own terms, but not necessarily realistic.
- Element of surprise should be present.
- Suspense: we should not know how the story turns out.
- Foreshadowing: hints at the direction the story will take.
- Logical: events should be believable in their relationships to one another.
(To read the complete guide, go to www.ci.maryville.tn.us/mhs/studyskills/CompGuide/LitAnaPlot.htm)
(See also How to Develop A Plot By EmmaRileySutton, at www.ehow.com/how_4567141_develop-a-plot.html).
So where can we find a plot for an escapist romantic fantasy in an age with no classic evil witches or fire-breathing dragons in sight? Easy. Today’s evil witch/step-mother is the in-your-face ex-wife, the snotty mother-in-law, the back-stabbing friend, etc... And the fire-breathing dragon that needs to be slain so our lovely couple can live happily ever after is usually the reasons why they are completely, obviously, blatantly unsuited for each other… like a vegan going to work for a butcher.
Okay, a vegan going to work for a butcher is not a good plot for Mills & Boon. Unless the vegan-feisty-sexy woman applies for a job as station-manager, working for the richest-macho-bastard cattle station-owner in Australia. Or did that plot-line die out in the seventies…? Whatever. The main thing is to make the conflict so obvious you can write it down in one sentence, but remember that the suspense has to be strong enough to carry the story for approximately twelve chapters.
If it’s not strong, you’ll need a lot of plot props or padding to keep the story going and that usually results in the reader getting lost in a maze of half-baked ‘what-the…?’ and in the process, land your submission in the reject pile. Believe me, I know.
To help with conflict and suspense, always ask yourself what makes you want to read a book, watch a movie or tune into every episode of ‘Farmer Wants a Wife’ (to see which farmer gets a girl, which girl he chooses and if they are getting married – romantic suspense in spades). The best way to judge if you’ve got a good plot is to read the synopsis/blurb/preview of your story as if it were written by someone else, then ask yourself ‘would I pay to read that?’. If the answer is no (be brave and true about this!), junk that plot and start again…
