You know I talk a lot about structure in writing.  Making sure there’s a midpoint reversal, that the story is divided into acts, that the big emotional turning points are all paced out.  There is a reason that this works.  The reader needs to go on an emotional journey with your protagonist, to experience both successes and setbacks, to see the possibility that the character might lose the plot question, and how bleak the story’s world would become should that happen.

At the same time, writers are often desperate to stand out, especially as the number of books published each month keeps increasing.  The first temptation can be to throw out traditional ideas on structure and try to invent something new.  After all, if nobody’s done it before, it has to be revolutionary, right?  While sometimes experimental stories do work, more often they fall flat, become incoherent or simply leave the reader unsatisfied.  You don’t have to reinvent the structural “wheel” in order to create a satisfying story.  There are a number of structuring methods — 3-act structure, 5- act structure, the hero’s journey, the Snowflake Method.  But whatever it is, you basically get a beginning, a middle, and an end, with a character arc and a set of themes.  It’s all just different ways of looking at the same thing.

Where the reach chance to shine as a writer is in how you use that structure.  Can you create a character that is both real and larger than life?  Can you use the character’s emotional reversals to both captivate the reader, and reveal universal truths about life and the human condition?  Can you flip tropes, or blend genres in a way that excites readers and gets editors on board with your ideas?

We’ll be talking at this month’s Saturday Night Write meeting about ways to generate exciting plot ideas, and one of the resources I’m going to introduce is Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations by Georges Polti.  It was originally written in French in the 19th Century.  And yet, we still see these same stories today.  The quest.  The voyage and the return.  The rags to riches tale.  What that quest may entail, and the kind of prize the character is seeking may be far different than a character would have faced in the 19th century, but the emotions behind it, and the steps involved are the same.  So don’t overthink it.  If you want to write a quest, write a quest.  Just make it clear how your protagonist is uniquely qualified to go on it.  One of my favorite spy series is the Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax, and everything about her is indeed unexpected.  I hope your next story becomes someone’s favorite, too.

How do you brainstorm plot ideas, especially for the second act of your book?  How do you participate in the “conversation” of your genre, following or breaking the codes and conventions?  How do you look for ways to surprise the reader, without having them feel you have derailed the book?