I came up with a new phrase all by myself. Well, I was listening to Writing Excuses and thinking about a few other people’s writing but still. Here it is.
Plot Chunks
These are events and sub plots that fit together to carry the story through the underlying narrative thread.
Now, I don’t know if anybody else has devised or described something similar to this, and if they have, whatever, this is just my interpretation of the idea.
I named it a plot chunk, because they are pieces of a story that are arranged in bite size chunks. They break down the main plot up into manageable pieces, or stakes that the character can accomplish.
You could call these Acts, I suppose, but I don’t feel like this gives the right idea. The whole point of the idea is to give your characters tasks or puzzles that they can go through. This can serve several functions such as:
reveal character traits
Give sense of progression
Keep the story and the characters active
I first started thinking about this while rereading Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson. Mistborn is a fantasy series about beings that can use different types of metal that they eat to fuel magical powers. This is a terrible description that butchers the story, but look it up, this is basically true. I love this series, like all of Sanderson’s other books. While I was reading, I realized that the story is broken up into several chunks, and even several chunk groupings.
First there is the introduction. **Spoiler Warning** Vin is introduced as a late teenage girl that lives on the street and is involved in the Luthadel criminal underworld. Without getting too far into it, Vin is revealed to have magic, we are introduced to the other characters, the world, the tone, and story promises are made.
Another long chunk is the deep dive into the various magics used in the world. Vin makes some new friends who each have a different magical ability. Abilities that Vin has all of. Different chapters feature each of these characters teaching Vin their ability. This serves the multi-faceted purposes of getting to know the other characters, revealing more of the world, developing Vin’s personality, and allowing her to gain in strength. It also drives the underlying plot forward.
Thinking about this idea has helped me to break down the plot of The Bubblegum People into more easily managed pieces, and even to allow my brain to process the things I need to do in order to move the story along.
I have an outline, technically, but I don’t have a guide map that tells me how to get to these different points that I have laid out. I have a lot of gaps where I don’t know how one event will lead to another. Sure, it is fun figuring it out along the way, and that is what I do a lot of, but it was hard to think about this in a concrete manner.
Anyway, I hope this has helped. Sometimes I have found that thinking about the writing process itself in bite size chunks can help.
My problem is that I try to hold the entire story in my head. Don’t do this.
Do this instead:
Break the story down into chunks
Complete one then move on
Keep writing
If you have another idea, make a comment in the margin
Rewrite.
