Life's been pretty hectic — but only in the best of ways. My wife gave birth to my son on January 23, 2025. It's been an incredible pleasure getting acquainted with him, and I really can't overstate how much I've enjoyed spending time together.
Nevertheless, I've been itching to get my nails back into writing. I submitted my most recent draft for a Black Library novel just before the New Year. This has given me some time to work on my own stuff. Two projects I've been examining are a novel I finished in 2019 and another novel I've been developing in my spare time since about 2021.
I'm really excited about these projects. The first one is set on a world defined by food scarcity, and I hope to revise it into three or five serials that I'm going to self-publish in ebook and audiobook format. The second book is half-mystery, half-political thriller, and still hasn't really taken its final form yet.
The reason the second novel hasn't taken its final form — and the main focus of my revisions for the first novel — is something I bet most writers experience trouble with...
I don't know how to plot the damn things!
I know I'm not the only writer who has trouble plotting, and I'm willing to bet some people would probably be interested in how I develop plots for my stories. With those topics in mind, I figured I'd take this opportunity to hammer out my thoughts on plotting into a blog post that I could share with you all. Two birds, one stone, yeah?
What is Plot? And How Is It Different from Story?
Stories can be analyzed on so many different levels. Along with conflict, theme, setting, and many more features, plot is one of numerous storytelling components. (In fact, I would argue it's the most fundamental storytelling component.)
So what is plot?
Roughly, plot is the narrative terrain of a story's events. Phrased more simply, plot is what happens in a story.
For many readers, the difference between story and plot can seem insignificant. If you want to give your friend the rundown of a great story you recently read, you're probably going to give them a plot synopsis. However, from a craft perspective, the difference between story and plot is worth understanding and internalizing. If story were a living, breathing organism, then think of plot as the organism's skeleton.
You know what? Let's use a deeper metaphor to really drive home the distinction between plot and story...
Imagine story as a city. Its inhabitants wake up each morning, interact with each other, wait in traffic, eat lunch, and yell at strangers. They order coffee, break up with their scumbag boyfriends, let their dogs poop in their neighbors' yards, help old ladies cross the street, and get lost looking for the doctor's office.
In this metaphor, plot would be a map of the city on paper. The map might convey all of the fundamental details of the city, but it won't quite show where ongoing construction is, or who is walking where, or what color the traffic lights are at any given moment. Nevertheless, the map does represent the geographical basis upon which the city — and for narrative, the story — rests.
Expressed more precisely, plot is the narrative frame through which an author is empowered to develop a story's character and thematic elements, express aesthetic choices like style and voice, and more. If you're a fan of science fiction and fantasy, then plot is also the path that guides audiences through new worlds.
Why Does Plotting Suck?
Oh, yeah, no. Seriously — plotting sucks.
Don't get me wrong. Plotting is a lot of fun. What makes it troublesome is that it can really slow you down when you're eager to dig your nails into a draft. It doesn't necessarily have to slow you down. There's a lot of common writerly advice to "Just Do It" and power through scenes even when you're unsure of how they fit into the larger plot. That approach doesn't work for me. I'm more than happy to pound out a scene without immediately knowing where it will fit into the story immediately, but when I take this approach, more often than not, I've ended up completely rewriting everything.
That degree of rewriting is hard to sustain when I'm working to a deadline. Thus, a general understanding of a story's plot before drafting begins is really a minimum requirement for me to write efficiently.
Why does plot give me trouble? Because more than any other element of storytelling, plot requires precision. All events in a plot must dovetail into each other perfectly, with clear relationships between them. The action in those events must rise and fall in time with the ebbs and flows of the story. Imprecise, inconsistent, and poorly paced plots are frustrating; avoiding this requires profound attention to detail. Since plot events are so intimately connected, even minor plot wrinkles can have massive downstream impacts, spawning a butterfly effect that requires reworking other events throughout the novel.
Taken together, all of this means that crafting a good plot feels like juggling plates on a unicycle — and doing it while my house is on fire, when I'm working to a deadline.
The Qualities of a Plot
I like to break down concepts as far as they go until I understand them at a fundamental level. So at a very basic level, what is needed for to constitute a plot?
In Novelist's Essential Guide to Creating Plot, J. Madison Davis answers this question pretty succinctly, ascribing three qualities to plot: chronology, causality, and rising action.
Chronology
A story's plot must be framed within some kind of chronology. This doesn't have to be a literal chronology. You can incorporate time-traveling hijinks or flashbacks and shuffle events within your story. You can write a story that exists in a world without boundaries of time and space.
Still, the events of the story must be grounded in the flow of time, even if that flow of time can only be perceived by the audience. Or even if the narrative is non-linear or otherwise loopy. (Looking at you, Christopher Nolan.)
Let's illustrate what I'm talking about through a sample passage that will serve as our microcosm of a story's plot:
At precisely 8:11pm, Tom is sitting in a room. Across from him, Chelsea is eating a pretzel. Above them both, a clock is ticking on the wall. |
You'll immediately notice that this passage is not chronological. I have not described a series of events that exists within a flow of time; I have simply described a moment in time. Given enough vitality and glamor, these words could make for a beautiful tableau or set up a scene, but nothing here can be construed as a plot.
However, by adding a flow of time, we can breathe chronology into this mini-plot. This will work even if that flow of time can only be measured in Tom's and Chelsea's perceptions, observations, and feelings. Take a look at my revised chronological version:
At 8:11pm, Tom is sitting in a room, and Chelsea is eating a pretzel across from him as a clock ticks on the wall. By 8:12, Tom has spoken, and Chelsea stops eating her pretzel. |
Causality
So, Chelsea has stopped eating her pretzel. Cool. It's not a plot, though — and definitely not a story. There's no relationship between the events.
This brings us to J. Madison Davis's second plot requirement: The events of a plot must be causally related. Event A must lead to Event B, Event B must lead to Event C, and so on. It doesn't matter whether a story begins with Event Z, so long as it illustrates how the cascade of plot events ultimately lead to Event Z.
In other words, you can put plot events in any order you choose, so long as the events are causally related. (But remember: Shuffling plot order requires subtlety and skill.) Let's continue developing our example:
At 8:11pm, Tom is sitting in a room, and Chelsea is eating a pretzel across from him as a clock ticks on the wall. By 8:12, Tom has spoken, and Chelsea stops eating her pretzel. By 8:13, Chelsea is standing. |
While this series of events is chronological, there's no clear causal relationship between the events. What does it matter that Tom has spoken, or that Chelsea stopped eating her pretzel and then stood? There might be a reason these things happened, but it's not evident here. And for a story's plot, it needs to be evident.
We can improve this mini-plot by connecting the events through causal relationships, as I've done below:
At 8:11pm, Tom is sitting in a room, and Chelsea is eating a pretzel across from him as a clock ticks on the wall. A minute later, Tom puts a book down and says, "I know about your gambling debt. I'm going to tell your husband." Chelsea stops eating her pretzel. After contemplating Tom's words, she stands. |
Notice that my example is only implied to be causally related through the sequence of sentences rather than through clear verbiage of cause and effect. That's okay — so long as the audience understands the causal relationships between your plot events.
Rising Action
Unfortunately, it is insufficient for a plot's sequence of events to be chronological and causally related. If I wrote a novella describing what I did on any given day, the novella's events would be chronological and causally related, but that rambling narration would not a story make.
Stories focus on the most difficult moments of a character's life. What that means is that the events of the story's plot must be interesting. We conjure interest through drama — that is, a series of unexpected and intense events with unexpected and intense outcomes. Good drama requires rising action from story's beginning to end.
Therefore, a plot must have rising action. Rising action means that three elements (listed below) must increase as the plot develops:
Conflict: What obstacles a character must surmount to get what they want
Stakes: What a character has to gain or lose if they do/don't get what they want
Tension: The [likely] prospect of looming conflict
Let's continue developing our mini-plot example below:
At 8:11pm, Tom is sitting in a room, and Chelsea is eating a pretzel across from him as a clock ticks on the wall. A minute later, Tom puts a book down and says, "I know about your gambling debt. I'm going to tell your husband." Chelsea stops eating her pretzel. After contemplating Tom's words, she stands. She puts her hands in her pocket. "No big deal," she says. "Bye now. And have a good night." |
The events in this passage are certainly chronological and causally related... but they sort of fall flat, right? In a way that makes you think, "What was the point of this?"
The action begins with Tom threatening Chelsea. Therefore, whatever follows in this miniature plot should raise the tension, conflict, and/or stakes from there.
Let's fix it with some rising action:
At 8:11pm, Tom is sitting in a room, and Chelsea is eating a pretzel across from him as a clock ticks on the wall. A minute later, Tom puts a book down and says, "I know about your gambling debt. I'm going to tell your husband." Chelsea stops eating her pretzel. After contemplating Tom's words, she stands. She puts her hands in her pocket, wrapping her fingers around her pistol, trying to decide what to do. "No big deal," she says, removing the gun, aiming it at Tom's forehead. The sight of the muzzle wipes his smirk off his lips. "Bye now. And have a good night." |
Jesus, Chelsea! You really went all the way!
Of course, my example's exaggerated, but it still demonstrates my point. This passage is a lot more compelling than the previous version.
From here, we could go in a hundred different directions. What if Chelsea decides not to shoot, then drives home to find her husband and discredit Tom? What if she does shoot and then has to figure out how to bury his body in the woods and escape detection by the police? What if Tom dives for cover and takes a hidden shotgun out from under a sofa cushion to return fire?
For plotting purposes, it doesn't really matter what happens from here, so long as we continue using our three key plot principles: chronology, causality, and rising action. We can keep baking on plot events until we have an entire story. Thanks for the help, J. Madison Davis.
My Process for Plotting
Hot take: Crafting a story can be defined in terms of Chaos Theory. Chaos Theory advances the idea that complex systems that appear to be random are in fact filled with patterns and even spontaneous self-organization. The patterns and spontaneous order that arise in these complex systems are often determined by the system's starting condition. Despite this self-organization and determinism, the complex systems are not necessarily regular, nor predictable.
This perfectly describes how I feel when writing a novel. Novels are massive undertakings ("complex systems"), and my creative process — especially when developing a plot — never really looks the same. Instead, the plots of my stories usually grow out of how I initiated the entire writing process, even if I ultimately arrive at a finished novel each time.
My plotting process begins during ideation and outlining and continues well into drafting and revision. It's a mess, and it looks something like this:
Think of a concept that I can't get out of my head.
Flesh out the concept with more "shower ideas," taking notes and conducting preliminary research.
Record the basic plot beats on paper: how the story begins, how it ends, and key scenes that I think work well for the novel's inflection points.
Boil down the ideas into a pitch to help me simplify the underlying idea into something easy to understand.
Complete a synopsis and outline that will help guide my drafting process.
Begin drafting the actual novel — and freak out, because nothing I've plotted seems to work.
Dump the outline and compose a vomit draft, knowing I'm not actually producing anything that will stay in the final draft.
(Weep bitter tears.)
Proceed to review and rewrite two to five times before I arrive at the final draft, chopping and replotting as I go.
Anyone who knows anything about writing craft might take a look at my process and say, "This dude could benefit from more thorough outlining."
For what it's worth, I totally agree. The obstacle I tend to hit with outlining is that my plotted events and their outcomes often feel wrong during drafting. That means I need to change them, which causes a downstream cascade of other necessary changes that ultimately take the novel in a wildly different direction than I first intended. Similarly, any changes to the later parts of my stories usually require substantial changes to earlier events in order for my foreshadowing to be appropriate.
I guess my point is: I just don't like spending too much time on outlining when I know I'm going to dump my plan anyways. Even so, still I outline. Perhaps, as Eisenhower said, it's not the plan that's essential, but the planning process itself.
At any rate, I'm getting better at applying my process efficiently. If you're curious how this looks in practice, take a look at the plot beats below, which were part of my initial outline for Godeater's Son. They show how the novel's plot looked during my planning process, before drafting and feedback from my wonderful editor, Hannah Shami (née Hughes), helped shape it into the novel it ultimately became:
After the midpoint battle, Heldanarr ends up in Bharat, where he convinces the city's denizens to help him. Heldanarr devises a plan to infiltrate a coming ball that will mark the official ordination of Candip as a City of Sigmar, where he will stop the Azyrites. Heldanarr sneaks into a local lord's manor to learn Azyrite etiquette and kills the lord after learning he secretly worships Slaanesh, losing his warband in the process. Despite this setback, Heldanarr ultimately makes it to the Azyrite ball, where plot twists prompt the Stormcast and city's defenders to kill each other. After his victory, Heldanarr kills his own remaining followers when he realizes he has recreated the tragedy of his own youth. |
If you've read Godeater's Son, you know that almost none of this is present in the novel as it was published. The reason the plot changed is that when I got to the second half my first draft, I knew these beats just wouldn't work. I ended up throwing together some new plot beats and rewriting everything.
All said and done, I'm pleased with how the novel was published. Hey — if it works, it works.
Story Structure: The Cheat Code for Effective Plotting
When writers talk about plotting, the topic of story structure usually enters the conversation. That's fair. And truthfully, I think a thorough application of sound story structure could help me with the two novels I'm working on.
Notice that we don't call it plot structure. The reason is that satisfying stories require more than just the plot's events to be in place. Remember: A plot is simply a narrative framework that allows you to achieve all of the story's remaining requirements, such as sustaining/resolving conflict or enabling character change.
Theorists and writers like Joseph Cambell argue that there is a universal story structure — a sort of unconscious human understanding of mythos. The conventional wisdom is that all stories must follow this universal story structure to be satisfying. According to proponents of this idea, we innately understand this structure and notice when it's not present.
I'm not going to make this same argument. In my view, as long as someone makes sure their story's plot adheres to the three core qualities laid out above, I think that will get them 90% of the way to a solid plot.
Nevertheless, I do think story structures are crucial cheat sheets for one key reason: They tell storytellers precisely when certain events have to happen in a plot for a story to be satisfying. That makes plotting — and by extension, writing — much easier. In other words, story structure serves as a kind of plotting guide
If you're wondering what I'm talking about, think about the following example: It would be strange for a peasant in a story to get married to a princess, be knighted, slay a dragon, return to his village and learn that it's in grave debt, and then meet an old man who belatedly offers to help mentor the knighted peasant. The reason this is strange is because the plot order breaks all the rules of story structure and rising action.
Instead, it would be appropriate for the peasant to first learn his village is in debt, then meet the old man who offers to mentor him, then use those skills to slay the dragon, get knighted, and marry the princess, and perhaps use her wealth and the dragon's hoard to pay off his village's debts.
An understanding of story structure can help novelists arrive at the correctly structured plot by helping them understand what sorts of things must happen at what points in the novel. And just so I'm clear, this is currently the approach I'm taking to fix the plots of my current projects.
I won't get into the nitty-gritty of what appropriate story structure is here. My preferred story structure is from Save the Cat! Writes a Novel: The Last Book on Novel Writing You'll Ever Need. This is the craft book I'm currently rereading to help me with my own plot struggles. If you want to plot your own novel, I highly recommend adopting the Save the Cat! structure. But other structures, like Five-Act Structure or the Hero's Journey, will also get your plot where it needs to be.
If It Works, It Works
I find myself orbiting around this thought, which I would leave you with as a final takeaway. Ultimately, the purpose of stories is to entertain. Whenever I'm working on any project, the core priority that I return to is, "What do the readers need for this story to be worth their time?"
What that means, I suppose, is there are no truly wrong answers when it comes to plotting (or anything story-related), so long as what you write is interesting. So don't overthink it. And if you're writing blog posts to procrastinate on your writing, then it's time to get back to work.