Building a Plot–A Guest Blog by Jordan Rosenfeld

In the competitive world of writing programs and the marketing end of publishing, plot-driven writing, often referred to by the glib word ‘commercial’—as if it is designed to sell you something—is sneered at. Literary writing—where ontological investigations of the self and existence flow out of characters in lyrical prose—is the glowing standard to which all writers are supposed to want to achieve, at least the ‘serious’ ones. So I’ve taken it upon myself to become the great defender of plot, that hapless device with the audacity to entertain, surprise and thrill readers (and without which, literature would be mighty boring).

Plots reconstruct, from the humdrum pieces of life, a far more satisfying matrix of meaning than we find in our daily lives. Why would we want fiction that is just like real life? A novel of my life would consist of endless tomes recounting my trips to the grocery store, diaper changes and a billion inconsequential moments of attending to the functions of the body and paying the bills. Most of us live a version of that already.

Plot is the engine that keeps your work alive. But that can be daunting when you try to find your way through a large or complex story you’re telling, or a simple but lovely one. I know lots of writers who get lost in the forest of plot they’ve created because they looked too far ahead and gave away the important stuff too soon, or took off on too many sub-plot paths. Relax, I’m here to tell you that plot is constructed in scenes.

Every scene is another mile of plot under your novel’s wheels. Which means if you run across a scene in your work that does not reveal new information, deepen characters, or take us a smidge closer to the mystery or problem at your novel’s core, you have a scene that doesn’t fit into the fabric of your plot and it’s time to take out the snippers.

What does it mean to reveal new information? Every scene must make the reader just a little bit smarter, but also hungrier for more. You must drop a clue, a revelation, an answer, a larger question, a motive, a sudden discovery, a new consequence and so on, or else you’ve just got a pretty little vignette.

When I revise for my plot, I work scene by scene, reading the last one I finished to see how the next scene plays off of it. I make notes to myself about scenes that don’t seem to fit the plot at all, and I ask myself, in every scene, have I revealed something new here without giving away the whole show?

Try it in your own revision and see if your plot doesn’t reveal itself like one of those holographic images.

Jordan E. Rosenfeld is a fiction writer, freelance journalist and editor. She is the author of the books, Make A Scene: Crafting a Powerful Story One Scene at a Time (Writer’s Digest Books) and Write Free! Attracting the Creative Life with Rebecca Lawton (http://www.writefree.us/). Jordan is also a contributing editor & columnist to Writer’s Digest magazine. Her articles have also appeared in such publications as, The San Francisco Chronicle, The St. Petersburg Times, The Writer and more. Her book reviews are regularly featured on The California Report, a news-magazine produced by NPR-affiliate KQED radio.

Visit her blog: www.jordanrosenfeld.wordpress.com