We can’t typically choose how inspiration finds us. Sometimes we’ve got a great plot idea and sometimes all we get to start with is a character or perhaps some kind of a vague vibe. Since I’ve already talked about turning those vibes into a plot, in this post, you’ll find out how to give your characters a real plot.
Related reading: How to plot a novel – Structuring your story the easy way – The right way to write character flaws – How (not) to write the boring parts
What IS a plot anyway?
Before we can have a meaningful conversation about plotting, we need to first understand what “plot” even is.
Essentially, a plot is a series of events connected by cause and effect. Because this happened, this other thing happened as well, and it all led to this. There’s some kind of a trajectory and something ultimately changes, whether that’s the character or the world (or both).
What about “story”? Is that different from “plot”? Sometimes we might use those words interchangeably, but actually there’s a difference.
You know Cinderella? She’s got a mean step-mother and mean step-sisters, and she escapes her life as their servant by wooing a prince. That’s a story. Disney and the Grimm brothers are telling the same story, but those stories have slightly different plots because I don’t remember anyone cutting off their toes and bleeding through their glass slippers in the Disney movie.
So now we are much better equipped to talk about giving your characters a plot, but why do you need it to begin with?
Why you need a plot
Short stories and slice-of-life fanfics can be like these snippets and moments that don’t have much changing, but if you’re writing a novel, you’re going to need a full plot if you want someone to read the whole thing all the way through. Beautiful writing alone will not suffice, though it is a nice bonus.
Yes, you can definitely write something where your characters are just vibing, but that doesn’t make it a story and you can’t write an entire novel that way.
Sometimes, when I say things like that, a new writer will come out of the woodwork and be like “You’re wrong, Joystoyevskien wrote a novel where the characters didn’t do anything but drink tea and talk about their problems and it was a thousand pages long!” and to them I just want to say so what? Are YOU that writer? Are you living in the same era? Do people enjoy reading that book or are most of its readers literature students who love to talk about what a genius that writer is?
Since you’re reading this post, chances are that you’re not an experimental genius author and you are writing for a modern audience. You don’t get off the hook just because some guy did things differently that one time. Your novel needs a plot.
Do you need to plot your story in advance, though?
In pretty much all cases, I’d recommend that you plot your novel before you start writing it, but how extensive your outline needs to be depends on your writing project and on your unique brain. Sometimes my outline takes half a notebook and sometimes it’s a bullet point list.
I know there are writers who write their novels without an outline, but if they do it successfully, they usually have a good understanding of plots and story structure that they use to navigate their story, they’re not just flying in the dark. It’s like not needing a map when you have to take a shortcut in a city you know well – you know what you’re doing and aren’t just taking random turns hoping for the best.
If you can write a story that makes sense without planning any of it in advance, great if it works for you! But if that tactic hasn’t produced very good work this far – or any work at all – then trying to force it won’t change anything. You need to change tactics.
A case for showing instead of telling
People aren’t the way they are just because they say so, and your characters likewise aren’t brave, foolhardy, stubborn, whimsical, intelligent or belligerent unless you show us your characters being that way, and that requires action.
So really, you might think your characters are very cool, in fact, the coolest, but that means nothing unless they get to do stuff and show us their personality traits, habits and beliefs in action. Give them plot events so that they can truly show what they’re like.
Got it? Cool. Let’s get back to giving your characters the plot that they deserve.
Are your characters full enough?
After writing that sentence, I just imagined your characters not finishing their plates, but that’s not what we’re talking about here, fortunately. Do your characters really have it in them to create plot events?
Because you know what, you shouldn’t write a story where stuff just happens to your character and they’re standing still, doing nothing. You probably knew that, didn’t you? Of course you did. Your character needs to act (and react), and that can only happen if they have personality traits, beliefs, past experiences, and other “stuff” that affects how they see the world and act in it.
In other words, plot doesn’t just happen to your characters, especially not to your protagonist, it happens through them. If you don’t know what’s going to happen to your characters, maybe they’re just too flat. This character workbook might just help with that.
What character creation needs from you
I know that by now you might be like “That’s well and good, Katri, but how exactly do I need to create those characters? How do I make them ‘full enough’?” Somehow I’m still yet to write a comprehensive post on character creation, but I 100% recommend starting from their flaws. Flaws help create plot, but also, they make your readers identify with your characters and care about them.
While waiting for that full post on character creation, here are some of the things you should be thinking about when creating your characters:
- Flaws that hurt the character themselves and flaws that hurt other people
- Strengths that are related to those flaws (because that way they’re more meaningful and realistic, but also you won’t have to pull them out of thin air)
- Other personality traits that will shine through the whole story, especially in difficult times (because that’s what real people are like)
- Past experiences that can cast a shadow on current events (but no need to write an entire story about their past as well)
- Beliefs about their place in the world, how you’re supposed to live and act, the difference between good and bad, etc (because all of this affects how they act but these beliefs should also be challenged over the course of the story)
- Default ways of reacting to conflict
- Something that colours the way they speak (Matt Bird calls this a “metaphor family”, but you can think of it like this: How is your character’s dialogue “on brand”?)
- How is this character exactly like most people, and how are they very different from most people? (Think of common struggles vs. niche talents, for example.)
As you can see, there’s nothing there about their eye colour or star sign. Yes, your character should have a physical form in the story and their appearance can say meaningful things about them, but we’re talking about PLOT now. You can think of their appearance some other time.
What characters are we talking about here, actually?
So you clicked into this post, expecting to find out how to give your characters a plot. But which characters are we talking about here? Is the character in your back pocket your MAIN character, or is it perhaps their opponent? Mentor? Love interest? You need to know that, because your protagonist (aka your main character) is the whole driving force of your plot.
If you’ve got a cast of characters in mind but you don’t yet know who’s the main character, think of these questions:
- Who would be the most interesting person to follow in your story?
- Who’s got the biggest problems and most to learn?
- Who’s already at a crossroads of sorts and whose life has become unsustainable?
Great protagonists aren’t chosen at random – they’re people who need to go on a journey that people need to read. Make sure you choose the right person.
If you currently have no idea, just start drafting your characters, keeping in mind the things we talked about earlier and especially their flaws.
When you’ve got multiple characters, you can also take a big piece of paper and create a character web to see how the characters are connected, how they know each other, how they work together, etc. That can help you see who’s the suitable central character for your story, but also, more connections puts more depth into your story, and that will come useful later on.
Your character needs a goal
When your protagonist is faced with that life-changing Big Problem, they come up with a goal. That goal is tied to solving that problem, though it could also look like “let’s just get past this problem and pretend everything is normal” or “let’s find the person who can fix this problem for me” instead of “I am personally responsible for this problem and will deal with it accordingly”.
Here’s where your character’s wants and needs come in. Your character WANTS something that they think will help them solve the problem, get back to normal and be happy. What they NEED is something altogether different, and that’s the thing that will actually help them solve the Big Problem and some of their existing problems. They can’t just get back to normal – that way of life is not sustainable anymore and they end up changing too much as a person to even want that anymore at the end of the story.
Will your character reach their goal and get what they want? Maybe. Maybe not. It’s a fun twist in the middle of a story when a character reaches their goal and it doesn’t solve anything after all. But when they get what they NEED? Your story is over. That’s what the story was about.
Start drafting now: What is your character like, what kind of a problem do they get faced with and what kind of a goal do they come up with? That’s the making of a plot, but actually, let’s talk more about those problems.
The answer to your problems: MORE PROBLEMS
I’ve already mentioned flaws a couple of times, so you might have already guessed that your characters struggling with something is extremely helpful for your plot.
Basically all stories are about someone tackling a new, significant problem, and that Big Problem will be made worse by the character’s existing problems and flaws. Because they’ll be doing things wrong A LOT, they will also create further problems. And why are they doing things wrong? Because while people can change, they will do it slowly and against their own will.
Your characters can’t get things right straight away because that would be unrealistic, but also, you wouldn’t have a story. If they were capable of fixing their Big Problem as soon as it arrived, it wouldn’t be a problem, it would just be a Tuesday afternoon. Your readers also need to be able to see why this character would struggle thing thing but also why they can’t just walk away from it.
Turning your character’s problems into a plot is exactly what you learn in the Troublemaker Method, but if you’d also like more plotting resources and my best outlining tools, you’re going to need the Genius Plotting System. You basically get to grow a plot just by throwing rocks at your protagonist. That’s much easier than staring at the empty screen and wondering what should happen next.
Existing problems vs new problems
Let’s talk about this a little more. At the beginning of your story, your protagonist will already be struggling with something, and often it has something to do with their flaws and something unpleasant that has happened to their past, or perhaps current unpleasant circumstances. Whatever it is, we need to get a glimpse of it straight away.
Then, when your plot kicks in, this character is faced with a Big Problem, something that significantly changes things and can’t be walked away from. This problem needs to be a perfect fit with the character, meaning that it needs to be particularly bad because this particular character is facing it. They should be a match made in hell. The character’s exact problems and flaws should make this new problem worse.
Preferably, the character’s smaller problems should just be smaller manifestations of their bigger problems. Metaphors, even, if you will. Maybe in the beginning they get stuck in traffic because they’re afraid of taking space and they just let other cars go first, and then later they find themselves in a bigger pickle because they let someone take advantage of them and they never spoke up.
All problems have solutions
What’s integral to your plotting is that these problems also need solutions. However, because these are, again, flawed characters, they don’t have access to the right solutions straight away. They need to earn the solutions through character change and through giving up something, whether that “something” is a person or an object, or something more immaterial like a goal or a belief.
At the risk of repeating myself: The right solutions to the character’s problems can’t be obvious to them in the beginning. In addition, your story will be much better and more interesting if the right solutions aren’t obvious to your readers either.
Just don’t forget that those solutions need to make sense in the context of your story. Maybe real life doesn’t work that way, but you can insert the reasoning into your story and make it work like that. That’s exactly what we talk about in my post about plot holes, but you could also get the Plot Without Holes workbook and plan your best story yet.
Never make it too easy
If you can throw a curveball or a spanner in the works, you usually should, as long as it’s in a way that makes sense in your story.
When your characters get things too easily, or something is just a little too convenient, your readers will notice and they won’t like it. Sure, the level of your problems can depend on your genre and the length of your novel, but you still need to make your characters work for their ending.
Think of the setting, as in the time and place of your story, and how it could complicate things. Can the physical environment make things harder, or perhaps the culture of the place? And what about other characters? How can they, either knowingly or unknowingly, make things more difficult for your main character? More than likely you already have the ingredients to a great plot, you just need to use them properly.
Oh, and remember those flaws that your character has, whether they’re unsightly personality traits or stupid misconceptions? They’re not real flaws if they don’t have negative consequences, and you need to show those consequences in your story. In other words, your character will make things more difficult for themselves simply because they’re still yet to deal with their problems and change as a person. That stuff right there is your plot. It’s not just some random external events that make it.
Map out the steps from the problems to their solutions
By now, you should have loads of ideas for character goals, problems and solutions, and it’s time to pick one Problem-Solution trajectory. You can decide what you want to map out first: the right steps to the right solution, or your character’s misguided and flawed attempts to solve the problem.
In any case, start coming up with the steps and everything that makes things difficult for your character. Think about their new problem but also their existing problems – these are always tied together somehow. Maybe not always in real life, but definitely in a story.
Do you need to know all of that before you can start writing? Of course not. Remember how I said in the beginning of the post that it depends on you and your story how extensively you want to plan your story in advance? Some of the blanks you can fill in later. Just start the process now – that’s why you’re reading this blog post.
For practical tips on how to outline your story, you should also read this post.
Make all this easier with the Troublemaker Method
I already mentioned the Troublemaker Method earlier, but it really is such a great way to create those plot events when all you’ve got is a character to start with. You learn how to use your character problems to your advantage, but you also get a nifty little spreadsheet that makes mapping out your steps easy.
If you’d also like all my bestselling outlining tools and learn even more about plotting so that you’ll never be stuck in your story again, then the Genius Plotting System is your guy. I hate the idea of my fellow writers sitting on great stories that they don’t know how to plot from start to finish, and it’s my mission to fix that issue.
Protagonist Crafts is a blog about writing fiction, written by a published author and creative writing teacher. You can find more writing tips and inspiration in the blog and you can get the best author tools at Writer Lifestyle on Etsy.
