Plotting the Novel

How Conflict Unfolds in the Plot

In a previous post I talked about the conflicts that are the building blocks of a novel's plot. In this post I'd like to discuss and illustrate the major parts that go to make up the plot (the story) in a novel. It doesn't matter which of the three major types of conflict we encounter in a novel.

The elements of plot:

1. The Hook (should occur close to the beginning of the novel, if not in the opening lines).

2. The Action. This is a multifaceted idea. The action is broken into scenes. It depends on what the characters do when faced with the conflict in the story, and like the old physics adage, for every action (scene) there is an equal and opposite reaction. We'll bend this  little statement as we discuss plot. We will show various types of action later in this post.

3. Rising Action. As the characters move from scene to scene in a story, a well-plotted novel will cause the action to increase in intensity, throw roadblocks in the way of achieving a solution to the conflict, and otherwise build upon what has come before.

4. The Climax. The climax should be the pinnacle of the action that has been building. It's not a good idea to end the story there. Readers want some sort of resolution after this. This is sometimes called the denouement.

5. The Resolution (denouement). Once the conflict has reached its climax and whatever happened in the climax, we need to leave room for cleaning up the story, tying up major loose ends, etc.

A more general way of looking at plot is to say that a novel has a beginning, a middle, and an end. I mention this, because in all the evaluations I have done over the years, I often had to ferret out the writer's plot movement and point out that she did not devote enough time to the middle of a novel, did not adequately develop the hook (the opening/beginning), or the end had very little to do with the beginning and the middle. Consider the plot as taking place in three acts. Longer novels are often subdivided into parts—and guess what, they usually have three parts. We won't complicate this concept right now with subplots.

The Hook, the opening

The Hook should occur near the opening of the novel to get readers to continue. If you don't do that and instead opt for pretty words or description or get involved in describing a character without an indication of some conflict, readers will quickly decide to choose another book. Believe me, they will.

Now we also need to choose a "hook" that matches the kind of conflict the story is about. It might sound like all novels should be action packed stories and that the hook should be as exciting as the beginning of the Terminator movie, when Arnold Schwarzenegger drops naked out of the sky. So let's consider some short story and novel openings—remembering that the hook should match the conflict in the novel.

For a long moment, while his hands shook, Jonathan held the new bottle of whiskey. He'd told his wife he would quit. But right now all he could think about was that first burning sensation in his throat...

Readers ought to be able to figure out from these two sentences that the conflict is going to be about an alcoholic (Man vs. Himself) who has made a promise to his wife to quit drinking. We see that we don't have to have an explosion down the street to hook readers. Further, the opening indicates that the plot in this novel will involve Jonathan fighting or giving in to his addiction.

The opening scene could go in several directions. Jonathan could open the bottle and gulp the contents. He could put the bottle back in its hiding place. His wife could come in just when he'd decided to pour the whiskey down the sink and assume that he was about to take a drink.

Opening lines or paragraphs set a mood right away, or they hint at something out of the ordinary. They don't have to be supernatural or suspenseful in the sense of a spy novel. It can be something as simple as an interrupted routine, say, in an old folks home.

The food trays didn't arrive at eleven o'clock. In fact, outside in the hall there was no sound, no sound whatsoever...

I would like to think that something as gently disturbing as this opening could go in any direction. Maybe something has happened and all the staff in the hospital have suddenly disappeared. Maybe a virus has temporarily killed them all and, in a couple of hours or less, those shut-in patients will suddenly be overrun with zombies.

Nonetheless, there are really great examples of the "best" novel opening lines, and all you have to do is "google" "the best novel opening lines" to get an indication. Also try "the worst novel opening lines" for some really fun reading.

The Action

Whatever movement we get from the opening lines should start the story moving along. And again, like the hook, the action in a plot doesn't have to be relentless, non-stop, thriller-type action. Maybe the novel is about how a mentally challenged person is suddenly thrown out onto the streets and has to try to find food and shelter...Like I said, there are as many stories as there are writers. Just remember to keep the kind of action in a story that is indicated by the kind of conflict it contains. Sometimes you want the characters to succeed fairly easily and think that they're all set. But don't be seduced by making the entire novel too easy on the characters. There is no story without conflict, so keep that in mind.

Rising Action

I like to call readers' attention to a typical Stephen King novel to indicate "rising action," because his novels are quite often relentless in building tension, going from one scene to the next, and things get worse and worse until the climax. One of his fairly recent novels (NOT the TV series) titled Under the Dome shows rising action in a great way. This mysterious dome drops out of the sky and traps a small town beneath it. Ok...so now they have to find a way out of it. But in failing to do so, we see that after a while, everyone begins to realize that the air is beginning to smell worse and worse. In fact, the carbon monoxide build up is beginning to replace the oxygen, and by the end, the survivors are beginning to panic, wear oxygen masks...anything to be able to breathe. There's a lot more going on and this is one of the subplots, but it eventually leads to the climax in the story.

The Climax

The movie Enough with Jennifer Lopez about an abusive husband and her attempt to get away from him and start a new life builds most of the tension only after she has successfully gotten away, making him think she has drowned. We see her starting a new life, taking self-defense classes, and otherwise taking on a new identity—and just when she thinks she's safe—her husband finds a small piece of evidence months later and begins his renewed hunt for her; the climax comes when he finds her. Not realizing that she is definitely not the same person she was, he attempts to attack and subdue her, but she is able to fight back, and in this movie the fight is the climax, but it is not the end of the story. The conflict is Man vs. Man, but of course Jennifer's drive to improve her self-defense skills is also evident in the story and while she is not in conflict about self-improvement it has elements of Man vs. Himself in it. I won't tell you how the story ends, but it is quite satisfying and is relevant to the conflict in the story.

The Resolution/Denouement

This is where the story is wrapped up, in one way or another. Sometimes novels end and leave it up to the reader to decide the true resolution. Sometimes,  the writer spells everything out and even attaches an epilogue, dropping back in to show us how the characters are doing a year or so later. The possibilities for the resolution in a book are as endless as there are stories. The most important concept to keep in mind, however, it that the resolution should also be a logical extension of the conflict, and the resolution should be relevant to what has gone before. Sometimes new writers get themselves in trouble and have no idea how to extricate the characters and themselves from a story that has no end in sight. The worse thing that a writer can do is to suddenly create a "deus ex machina" solution to a story that changes the kind of story it is. For example, let's say the story has been about a car thief who is on the run from the cops, and by the climax is standing on a cliff facing either having to jump or be captured by the now impossibly overwhelming army of law enforcement agencies. In Thelma and Louse, we see that they just drove over the cliff and went out in a blaze of glory. This fit the kind of story and conflict of what had gone before. But let's say in our stolen car story, our anti-hero car thief is one we want to win or get away, or something—anything but being gunned down on the edge of the cliff or captured and taken into custody. So what's a writer going to do? In a Deus Ex Machina solution the writer depends on an implausible action that has not evolved from the story, like having a divine intervention come to the car thief's rescue and whisking him away, car and all, into an untouchable realm. In other words, if you've written a story that is grounded in ordinary reality, don't suddenly turn it into a fairy tale, science fiction, or ghost story at the very end.