Tag: Write-Plotting

Editing Rant: Defining Plot

Erin Penn

Defining Plot through Music Video

I had a teenager writer ask me about what a PLOT actually is a couple-few years ago (went looking for the date and found it: 7/12/2019). This is the very long email I sent in response.

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So there are two videos that I watched recently which may help with defining plot.

Let’s take Miss Independent by Kelly Clarkson and Fighter by Christina Aguilera.

Miss Independent – the song lyrics – has a journey of change. (google search “Miss Independent by Kelly Clarkson Lyrics”) Miss Independent starts defining the character, and foreshadows her change of character. Next verse is her hesitation to change. Final verse and chorus is her deciding to give love a chance.

Miss Independent – the video (see below). Is more of a news report than a story, though most news reporting attempts story-like elements for engagement. You start with the end, where you see the party aftermath, then see party scenes – silly string, karaoke, pool time, and other fun things. Every now and again you get the hint of the guy. BUT this is more just like a bunch of disconnected scenes – you don’t get a romantic payoff, you have no character growth, no decisions are made, nothing changes. You can see that there COULD be a plot there if emotional transitions were added and the scenes connected, but right now it is a video hodgepodge. Cool but not a plot – maybe a story-idea, but no plot. Plot has a structure.

So for Miss Independent you have a plot in the song but not one in the video.

The reverse is true for Fighter, where the song doesn’t really have a strong plot, but the video does.

I wanted to really bring Fighter to your attention because of the Mermaid and Monster short story we were discussing last night. That story was a metaphor story both heavy-handed (nearly laying out everything word for word in case you couldn’t get who was the “mermaid” and who the “monster”) and didn’t really carry the metaphor well, because even with all that you were still asking what was the point the writer tried to get across.

Fighter’s video is incredibly surreal, and carries a metaphor storyline well.

For the lyrics (google “Fighter Christina Aguilera lyrics” and remember to open it up to get all the verses), you have a background-infodump more than a plotline. No one is changing and there is no clear beginning, middle or end (just like in the Miss Independent video – where we got a middle and end, but no beginning). Fighter is also an emotional character study – part of the reason there is no change of the characters. So Background-History and Character-Sketch, even good Worldbuilding, but no Plot.

Then you hit the video, where the plot is metamorphosis, again a change. It reflects an abused woman escaping her abuse to come into her true self by creating a metaphor with butterfly collection where the characters are stuck behind glass and pinned down, to eventually flying free after pulling out the pins and throwing them away.

A complicated two-layer linked metaphor – with the dancers creating a metaphor to butterflies, then the butterflies creating a metaphor of an abused woman transforming to strong woman. Beginning starts in the glass, middle is throwing off the pins, ending is transforming to a stunning white butterfly / and a red skirted fighter capable of walking.

Change needed for Plots – This is a fun video for me “Road Trip” by VoicePlay (I like Acapella).

Initially, you would think that the plot is a road trip, after all that is the title of the video. And that is where the story starts, but a road trip is just a type of action sequence getting a person (or group) from point A to point B.

That is not where the CHANGE is happening. The change is the music selection in the front seat. The beginning is just turning the music on and getting an unacceptable song. Middle of the plot is conflict, mediation with help of the back seat –SIDE PLOT BREAK (with a beginning, middle, and resolution there too) – and finally a full-circle ending of acceptance what cannot be changed.

I really enjoy VoicePlay for their ability to mime a full plot-driven story with a song collection. This one is not only a story, but several side-plots with an opening vignette story of trying to get into the car, and other side items which are not stories like the “aerosol” can and buckling the seatbelt.


I am going to define a plot for a story as (1) beginning, middle, end; (2) a structure, (3) something changes.

Webster’s Dictionary: the main events of a play, novel, movie, or similar work, devised and presented by the writer as an interrelated sequence.

SEQUENCE and INTERRELATED are the important parts of this definition. (sequence = beginning, middle, end; interrelated = structure)

I should mention this includes the plot where the beginning and end are the same, but you have a middle with changes – this is the “full circle” type of plot device. So after the entire story, there is no change if you only look at the start and end – but there is power in choosing not to change after something acted upon the character. In the case of the Road Trip – which is a one version of full circle, they start and end up on the same song, the characters’ middle with conflict changed them from rejecting the song to accepting it.

Well, I hope this helps. I had fun figuring out examples on the way home and will be making a blog out of it. 

Editing Rant: Jump or Break?

Erin Penn

Photo by Blake Cheek on Unsplash

Break or Jump? White space options

So today’s edit came with two sections marked by the writer with the following (paraphrased) question. “Do I need a scene break here, a transitional paragraph, or can I just do the jump?” I understand why the author did not want to do the transitional “just adding words” – both cases were characters moving from point A to point B – in a rather obvious fashion. Why tell the readers that?

It would be boring.

We don’t want boring.

So the question then becomes scene break or scene jump?

I said break for one and jump for the other, because of emotional situation.

The characters stuck at computers and cramping. (Scene break of three stars showing some time has passed) Opening the doors and going outside into sunshine and feeling free.

Characters in car tense, parking at location (Scene Jump with new paragraph) Characters hit a wall of noise when they enter the building making them tenser. 

Transitions ignored for the break and jump – going for computer, down hall, to outside. / getting out of car, out of parking lot, into building.

This is something I’ve seen writers not really understand – using white space to add to the emotional development of the story. Sometimes a writer gets so caught up in the words, they forget paragraph-returns have their own powers.

I think the scene break helps the reader feel the difference between being hunched and free – though the conversation continues, the reaction between the characters is now shaded differently.

Whereas the jump scene increased the intensity. The reader gets whopped by the sound with the characters.

In both cases, the “white space” option complements the emotional investment needed by the reader.

Anyone else have stories (teaching-moments) about white space as an editor or writer, and how we can use “emptiness” to make a story better?

Magical Words: Of Men and M.I.C.E.

Erin Penn
4501583 © Werg | Dreamstime.com

In Orson Scott Card’s book, Characters and Viewpoints, he breaks down M.I.C.E. – Milieu, Idea, Character, and Event. These represent four different story structures.

In Milieu, the character gets removed from the normal; though the normal still exists. Going off to college is one example; most classic quests are Milieu. Idea is a puzzle, a mystery of some sort. Character is a character-driven story where something is the character’s life has become untenable and they must fix it; the turning point of the character’s life. Event is similar to Milieu except the characters remain in the normal place, but something has happened to the normal so it no longer exists.

Discovering the paranormal is real would be a Milieu, having a Zombie infestation would be an Event.

Alongside this is Want. Story structures define a type of story – like a car choice. Want is the gas in the car. What make the characters move forward. 

To read more about Want, Expectation, and M.I.C.E, look over these two Magical Words postings made by Edmund Schubert:

7/10/2010 – The Importance of Wanting in Fiction:

8/14/2010 – Great Expectations – No, Not Dickens:

Other Cool Blogs: D.B. Jackson 8/12/2020

Erin Penn

Photo by doo on Unsplash

Is there meat on those bones?

Going into summer, it’s time to break out the grills and BBQ sauces. Hamburgers and steaks already fragrant the air on Sundays here in the South. Fish and ribs less so, as those need a smoker and breaking out a smoker means a Crowd is needed for the resulting disgorging of meats.

Ribs need meat on the bones to be worth the hassle.

Just like a writing idea needs meat on the bones to be worth the hassle.

As you know, this year I’ve been working on catching up on all the writing the pandemic smothered under worry, concern, and change from the normal. 2019-201 were barren years for the blog, but I’ve caught up with nearly all of it at this point except for the flashes.

Those are getting filled in quicker than expected thanks to a Facebook group I belong to doing a weekly flash using a word or a visual. Well, we started with a word or visual, but no one responded to the word prompts so we have switched to 100% visual prompts. Since the point of them for the group is to kick-off writing, not substitute for a Work-In-Progress, the group asks people to limit themselves to around 50 words.

This makes them short, very short, maybe too short to tell a story. Most of the time I end up doing just vignettes, scene descriptions, a world-building blink, or character sketches. Creating a STORY – beginning, middle, and end – a growth arc for characters – something changing or developing – a true flash, that is difficult.

When I worked on an anthology for LTGBQ+, I reviewed a lot of character sketches. Writers honoring people they knew, explaining how LTGBQ+ might think, a situation they lived through or were told about (a news article). Very, very few of the submissions were STORIES.

D.B. Jackson describes his trials with working through anthologies submissions looking for stories instead of noodling-out an idea to see if it has meat on its bones. The 8/12/2020 post is titled “Writing-Tip Wednesday: Short Fiction Anthologies – When Does an Idea Become a Story?“

Many of the ideas I test out in flashes appearing here don’t have enough meat to become a story. And many of the ideas done even have the meat to be flashes. Let’s break down some of the things that aren’t stories.

To be a story, a reader needs to connect. There should be a beginning, middle, and end. A character development arc should occur, as well as the beginning-middle-end rise and fall of action/activities. A point or theme helps strengthen the base of the plot. Most importantly, something happens, something progresses, something changes.

News Article – Relating an event. It doesn’t need reader engagement and often only the end of the story is reported, not the beginning and middle.

World-building blink – I love my world-building and sometimes I just write down a definition or rule set for a new world.

Character sketches – Like world-building, and more common with most writers, a character definition, sometimes shown through a vignette.

Scene descriptions – More about the description than what is happening within the scene. Again, no beginning, middle, nor end. The concentration is on the Now.

Vignette – A scene description, but more about the emotional reaction it provokes. Reader engagement is much higher than the previous options, but there is no rise or fall of action. The story is still focused on the now.

Recent story categories:

Hotties – This flash is somewhere between a story and a vignette. The main character is on the cusp of making a change. At less than 200 words, this needs words to make more meat.

Claims a Warrior’s Heart – Over 1,500 words, we got a story with meat. I snuck in poetry and many of the characters are well defined.

Not all who wander – 879 words of character sketch. Yeah, it’s slightly more than a character sketch, but nearly everything happening is defining the main character as a character.

Long Loop – 262 words and a worldbuilding blink.

Elementary – This is clearly a vignette. All about the emotions.

Light – A scene description. (The visual prompt below it crosses into a vignette.)

Pizza and Movie Night – 123 words … and a full story. A change in expectation, a decision made. A beginning, middle, and end. It’s possible even for the shortest wordings, but doesn’t happen often.

Again, the article is: https://www.dbjackson-author.com/2020/08/12/writing-tip-wednesday-short-fiction-anthologies-when-does-an-idea-become-a-story/

WRITING EXERCISE: Look over some of your short works. Are they full stories, or is something lacking making them fall into other categories. Give two examples in comments, linking to your blog or wherever you have posted the manuscripts.

Writing Exercise: Inciting Incident

Erin Penn 1 Comment

Photo by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash

Hannah Yang gave a very in-depth article “How to Write an Inciting Incident for Your Novel” on ProWritingAid (Jan 16, 2022)

The Characteristics of Inciting Incidents really hit me with characteristic #3 being the gut punch – “It’s out of the protagonist’s control.” I’ve never really thought about it. It isn’t Joan chose to leave home, it’s Joan was kicked out of the house. It isn’t John choosing to marry, it’s John falling in love with someone (and the plot centers around the fact he couldn’t legally marry them). Not only does Inciting Incidents happen (1) early in the book and (2) changes things / disrupts the status quo. It also isn’t in the characters control and (4) forces them to make a difficult choice.

The Inciting Incident is when everything changes. 

Genres tend to be Inciting Incident driven early in the narrative.

  1. Romance – Introduction of the protagonist to another person. A “meet-cute”.
  2. Mystery – A question/mystery arises that must be answered/investigated.
  3. Fantasy/Sci-Fi Adventure – “Answer the Call”. Something is inviting (or forcing) the character from the previous life into a new one.

Literary fiction often has something challenging the protagonist’s worldview – questioning what they are taught. These may be related to coming-of-age stories, but anyone in any genre might have an “a-ha” moment that terrifies, shifting their world with a snap,

For flash and novellas, most Inciting Incidents happen in the first chapter, maybe even in the first paragraph, dumping the reader into the fray. Downside, the reader doesn’t understand how the Inciting Incident is changing everything, but it does start with excitement. Novels might do a bit of worldbuilding and character development, giving a chapter or three before everything changes.

This is just the scratch of the surface for the article. If you want to found out more about Inciting Incidents before tackling the writing exercise below, the URL is: https://prowritingaid.com/inciting-incident

WRITING EXERCISE: Write an Inciting Incident. Just a short scene.

My Attempt: It took some doing to find flashes meeting “out of the main character’s control.” Like I said, I hadn’t really focused on that aspect of an Inciting Incident before. Need to work on it more.

“Not All Who Wander” (February 27, 2022) – This is a sci-fi romance, with romance being the central part of the story, and starts with a meet-cute. Yes, the two had played a VR adventure together, but it was a “for-hire” from a chatroom one-and-done. Garrett takes the first big step saying he wants more. Becca starts her normal comfort zone declining, but decides to Change Things to the point of sending him a Contact Card when she returns to real life. I really would like to return to this couple to see how things go – between her real-life body betraying her and his body being … well, that is what the story hinges on.

“You Have Mail” (February 6, 2022) – An urban fantasy romance starts with a mystery. A physical letter from an on-line friend with just a key and a sheet of paper with an address. Should Bryan investigate or leave it be? Given his normal life, worldbuilt into the story as he does the initial letter investigation, how bad can looking into what the key goes to be?