Category Archives: Plot

Plot Requirements

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Step 42

Plot Requirements

The success or failure in achieving the goal is an important but short moment at the end of the story. So how is interest maintained over the course of the story? By the progress of the quest toward the goal. This progress is measured by how many of the requirements have been met and how many remain.

Requirements can be logistic, such as needing to obtain five lost rubies that fit in the idol and unlock the door to the treasure. Or, they can be passionate, such as needing to perform enough selfless acts to win the heart of the princess.

The important thing is that the requirements are clear enough to be easily understood and measurable enough to be “marked off the list” as the story progresses.

In this step, list the requirements that need to be met in order for the story’s overall goal to be achieved.

Developing Your Story’s Goal

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Step 40

Developing Your Story’s Goal

Some novice writers become so wrapped up in interesting events and bits of action that they forget to have a central unifying goal that gives purpose to all the other events that take place. This creates a plot without a core.

But determining your story’s goal can be difficult, especially if your story is character oriented, and not really about a Grand Quest.

For example, in the movie “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” all the characters are struggling with their relationships and not working toward an apparent common purpose. There is a goal, however, and it is to find happiness in a relationship.

This type of goal is called a “Collective Goal” since it is not about trying to achieve the same thing, but the same kind of thing.

So don’t try to force some external, singular purpose on your story if it isn’t appropriate. But do find the common purpose in which all your characters share a critical interest.

Referring to your story synopsis, have you included a Goal in which all the characters are involved?

If so, describe it below in as much detail as readily comes to mind.

If not, consider your subject matter and the activities in which your characters engage. What singular achievement would affect them all for better or worse?

Designing Your Plot – Multi Appreciation Moments

The great masters of plot create dramatic moments that multi-task. For example, a novice writer might reveal the story’s goal in a line of dialog, but a master storyteller might reveal it in such a way as to also add insight into the speaker’s personal issues, the nature of his or her relationship to another character, and also to illustrate an aspect of the story’s thematic message.

Stories in which each moment means only one thing are usually not particularly involving as they do not reflect the complexities of real life. Further, with single appreciation moments, there is only one way to appreciate a story. But the great masters of storytelling include so manty multi appreciation moments that each time a book is re-read or a movie seen again for the umpteenth time, the focus of the audience attention during the unfolding of the story is never along the exact same path twice.

Each trip through the story opens new insights, provides new experiences, and reveals new surprises as new interpretations and understandings are exposed every time through the journey.

So, to keep your story, be it novel, screenplay, stage play, or even song ballad from being a one-time experience and coming off as a point-by-numbers approach to structure, consider employing multi-appreciation moments in your storytelling to enrich the experience and create an atmosphere worthy of a master storyteller.

Melanie Anne Phillips
Co-creator, Dramatica