How I Build my Novels from the Ground Up
Plot points bond the story together by forming the most important links of its structure
World-building is an integral part of any novel, and A story is unlike real life. Often, real life feels directionless. Unplanned stuff happens, and plans don’t always work out.
But no matter how alien your writing world is, the emotions you are writing about are human.
The reader yearns to read a story about characters overcoming challenges, growing, and learning about themselves. The world, and its events, are boring in comparison, and it’s how characters react to the world and events that are interesting.
Yet no matter how developed the world or how real it feels, it can never be more than a stage for the story. The world you build should never be more important than the events and characters placed within this world.
World-building is an essential part of almost all novels. Realistic and believable worlds take time to create. Some novels and genres require more world-building than others. It requires a thoughtful and systematic approach from the writer, developed in a way that makes it feel real.
In my novels, my lead character has direction. She doesn’t know it instantly but will soon figure it out. The story’s trajectory concerns whether she gets where she is trying to go, but my job is to put many roadblocks in her way; at first, she is clueless. But she learns, and pretty soon, I provide her with new talents that allow her to get through the roadblocks.
After working on the crisis for a while, she reaches a do-or-die situation where she must apply all her new skills to achieve her goal. In the end, she’ll either get there, fail to try, or get to a different place that turns out to be where she wanted to go but failed to recognize it.
To achieve my world-building, I employ plot points
Plot points cement the story together by establishing the most important joints of its formation.
Plot points help maintain the reader’s interest by changing the story’s trajectory enough to keep it interesting.
Plot points also act as signposts, telling the reader they are about to enter the story’s next phase.
Four Act Structure
Here are the four elements of the Four-Act Structure I use in my novels:
1. My central character maps out where she wants to go. It could come in the shape of a minor crisis that the protagonist intends to overcome and then return to her everyday life
At the end of Act 1, she commits to getting there, whatever it takes.
2. In Act 2, the story is thrust into a higher gear and meanders in a different direction. She hits roadblocks and repeatedly needs to get beyond them using the right approaches.
This new direction is the protagonist’s attempt at testing the waters. She’s reacting to the hurdle and trying to figure out how to solve her current problems.
At the end of Act 2, my lead character realizes that she has been doing it wrong, sees a more effective way, and pledges to do it right from now on.
3. Act 3 is the midpoint in the story. The protagonist has a small measure of triumph in getting past the small hurdles. But she still needs to be done because she hits more roadblocks.
A light bulb goes off when she understands that the roadblocks are the core problem to be resolved.
At the midpoint, most of the small-scale problems are solved but advance toward an even bigger problem or problems — a significant threat posed by the antagonist.
At the very end of Act 3, she once again commits to tackling the root problem.
4. Here, in the final part of the story, it should zoom in on the central conflict and be about almost nothing else. With newly learned skills, my character either succeeds or fails. If the protagonist succeeds, it’s because she has earned it, and if she fails, it’s because she deserves it.
However, she may fail at her original goal but succeed at a better one. If this happens, it’s because she deserved it.
most of the time, real life doesn’t work out that way. Readers don’t want your story to be like real life.
Readers want your story to be “the way real life would be if there were justice in the universe.” Your story should always end with the lead character getting what they deserve, and that’s justice, whether your lead character succeeds or fails.
Stories are about our longing for justice in an unjust universe. Let’s be clear that the universe isn’t just. Bad things can occur to good people, and good things can happen to immoral people.
And that’s why readers want your story to end with justice for your lead character.
You can break a bunch of rules in fiction writing, but here is one I strongly urge you never to break:
Always give the lead character what they deserve in the end.
Thank you sincerely for reading and sticking with me to the end.
I enjoyed this. And I appreciated you stating their are four parts.
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K