HELP!!!! Plot Help.?

Question

I need help with plot idea's know all about characters. I know that authors are supposed to write about what they know but to be honest I have tried to write about a character similar to my life and I get about six pages and I am finished. I just need something to escape to when I have had a bad day. Sorry I'm rambling but please HELP!!!

Answer 1

So ramble away! Sit down with a pen, pencil, paper, laptop, computer, whatever you feel comfortable with, and simply write! I'm working on my 48th book and four of them are epics, but I started by needing something to relax and picked up a yellow legal tablet with a pack of Bic pens bought for my daughter to use at school. Looking back on my first ramblings, I'm rather appalled at how funny I think them now, but at the time I wrote of what a Country and Western song made me feel while driving home after a pittsy eight hours of at-work one evening, the sun glaring off the windscreen as it lowered and made safe navigation an impossibility. What season was it? What was the problem at work? Tell your reader, no, tell yourself and take your reader with you.

I read something that Emile Loring wrote many years ago about plots and, for some reason, it has always stuck in my mind. If you picture your plot as a stairwell that you're running up and you find yourself stuck, turn around and go back down a few steps, or words to that effect since I'm not quoting her exactly. I'm sorry to say that I only remember the character in the story she was speaking of was a budding author.

I was great at character development, so good that I completely forgot to let the reader know where the characters were! I managed to work in a few things like the grit of sand and the smell of the ocean, a night bird crying and the surf rolling in as the character went for a midnight run on the damp, firmly packed sand, her long honey blonde braid bouncing from hip to hip, but I wrote a murder mystery trying to be a romantic fiction, with a great deal of science fiction tossed in. Killed off several characters modeled after irritants in my real life, though. That was some fun, getting away with what I could and would never do in reality! Ah, stress relief…almost as good as going for a swim!

See? Rambling!

Now, forget all of what you know that you should write, toss out all the perfect punctuation, spelling and grammar, and write! Who said that you had to write what you know? If you want the story to read as if you know what you're talking about, go back later and put in the real details...that's what reference sources are for, my dear! Oh, and use spell-check, check for punctuation and grammar before trying to submit anything or it hits the bottomless bounce file. For some reason I've yet to understand, those people are sticklers about disliking passive voices: But those are action verbs!

And why can't you remember any more than six pages? I was born, (breach, in a boat coming too slow to shore with a fishing crazy pops at the tiller!, or I was early and the closest doctor was a vet, so guess what!, or my mom had me with no problems, took me home and took wonderful care of me, spoiling me rotten!); I broke my leg at two, (I was still in diapers and remember my cousin blowing out her birthday candles as that diaper was getting changed and I was crying from the pain of having a big mother's hand gripping that leg right where it was broken. But none of the parents saw her push me over after I stepped in a hole from a broken board on the porch and when I kept crying, I was spanked, or I tripped over those klutzy shoes the parents put on me and wore plaster during the summer, while they bronzed the guilty shoes!), I liked the sandbox at kindergarten,(now you know how the feel and sound of gritting sand can stay with a kid, for fifty years!), I knew better than to do things my mother and father said not to or I'd be punished, (but had too much fun forgetting that and did things anyway, but what did I do?). I went to high school and straight to the university, or attended the ninth and tenth grade in five different states and eight schools, (but took my GED without study when I was through goofing off as a young adult and then went to college, working my way through since I'd tossed away all the scholarships). I married young, twice, (Was never married and live in a large house with a number of pets and my significant spouse, who warned me that I had to mention that, or else!), I took a job to pay the insurance premiums for my kid's braces, (she inherited my perfectly straight teeth). I retired after raising her, my niece and nephew and now I live alone and speak to them on the phone, sometimes, (my significant other doesn’t like that reference!). There is a life...was it yours, mine or the character that needs developed? Rambling, as long as the significant other doesn’t mind, that is, (Is there a significant other in my life? How did they get there, or why didn’t they get there?)

Six pages is not a life. Start with being your first hero or heroine and you're writing, or that boy/girl that you didn't let know you had a crush on s/he in high school, this time your pen lets you have them! Instead of telling a reader how it feels to ski down a crisp mountain trail, put a serial killer around the bend and tell how s/he feels waiting for that cross-country skier. HOW WILL you stop the unwary, or the wary? I need help, a wire across the trail, shoot them? Trip them by sticking out your ski pole? No, it's you that are the serial killer, only you're covered in fur with sharp claws! RAMBLE, ramble. OUch.

Or the victim of a mega bucks lottery win, how do they feel after the new wears off? New is exciting, familiar is comfortable.

Your life is full of imaginary things to write about; how did I know how it felt to have a braid, a long golden blonde braid, bouncing from hip to hip as I ran on a beach? (Put a long, wet towel on your head, twist it, tie it and go for a run!) I always thought I'd like to be a Leopard Frog out in the pond, until I saw one being eaten by a snake one day, kicking and struggling to get free. Then I wanted to be a Leopard Frog with the power to stay on the lily pads!

Andre Norton shaped my reading habits, so anything was possible and I became the characters she so realistically painted with so few words, but I'm still trying to master the western epic and failed to live up to my ideal as a science fiction/fantasy writer. Now Edgar Rice Burrows and Tarzan! I'd like to write as either of those two very talented people were able to!

I'm rambling, and I'm just brainstorming. Try that. What else have you to lose? It’s a great stress reliever and practice doesn’t mean that you HAVE to publish, just enjoy. Hey, try a Country and Western song on the radio and picture what the artist is singing about, worked for me.

Just remember to leave a few years in between readings, so you can laugh, like I did, at how much you've improved.

Answer 2

Don't worry, this happens to the best of us. How about developing a character that isn't like you? It would be more interesting to get into their heads, instead of writing what you know all the time. The advice of "writing what you know" doesn't mean turn the story into an autobiography. It just means stick close to home, so you create a realistic character. For example, you probably wouldn't want to write from the point of view of an alien unless they were also sort of human-like.

For the plot, have fun with it! Take a newspaper story or something you saw on the news and try turning it into a story. Or something that happened to you at school could become a good plot, especially when the characters are more interesting than your classmates (no offense.)

Don't worry, it'll pass. Good luck!!

Answer 3

Yeah-- that's what would happen to me if I tried to write about my life!

Reading your question, though, what stands out is your statement that you "just need something to escape to when [you] have had a bad day." So, stop writing about yourself! Write about trolls who live in the sea or people falling into black holes. Really, in the end, you'll be surprised by how closely your trolls or the poor people falling into the black hole mimic some of your traits or say something you heard at the grocery store, anyway. I think people get confused by that "write what you know" statement. After all, if you know fear, then you know a little bit of what those people are feeling when they near the event horizon.

Good luck.

Answer 4

Seem like someone blew up before I do... I was gonna ask the same question with those people without a imagination and free mind. Can't they just think of anything to write if they want to write something? If they can't write a plot for themselves then seriously, they should give up the idea of writing. In the end, i just see the deterioration of creativity in people minds nowadays.

Answer 5

Well, cowboy may have already said this but man that's a lot to read... There's nothing wrong with your protagonist being ordinary, just put them in an un-ordinary event. What would you (or someone like you do when this or that happens?) It has a built quality that readers can relate to.

Answer 6

I've found that there is a simple two-word question that helps get me going most of the time: What If?

If you're feeling a bit disjointed, go ahead and scribble down notes on cards. One thing I've found useful is to write down actual descriptions of my characters: It helps me get into their heads, so to speak.

I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but I hope it has use for you. Good luck!

Answer 7

OK listen up. The character is a frustrated writer who comes to websites and begs people for ideas. Her traits are dazed and confused.

Answer 8

You're not rambling,you're just stuck.Never fear,it happens to all ofus who choose to write!A suggestion"Stop agonizing&clear your mnd of all outside interference,breath deeply¢er your chakras(this will take time to learn,but keep at it!)From the point between your eyes to your throat,chest,center(stomach)&spine,try to picture color behond your closed eyes,beathing slowly&deeply.after awhile,open your eyes&look around you&be amzed at how much time has passed!Then,sit don&begin writing the first thing that comes to you.Try It!

Answer 9

um....what do you just want us to give you a plot out of thin air?

you don't have to write what you know, where is the fun in that? Make stuff up...it is more fun than reality.