My Writing Guide

Create a Plot in 3 Easy Questions

1) My story is about ___________.

This should be one word. It can be abstract or concrete: hope, revenge, magic, space, cats, computers, time, dinosaurs, cheese...pick a word. If you have no idea, use to generate some random nouns. Generate 10 and pick 1.

2) My character/s embody or interact with this by ____________.

If you chose something like hope, anger, regret, then explain how at least once character embodies this (My character embodies revenge because his dad was killed when he was two years old). If it's something concrete like dinosaurs, explain how your character interacts with dinosaurs (it could be that you character is a dinosaur). This should be one sentence.

3) This matters because _____________.

If your character embodies revenge, why does it matter? How will her wanting revenge affect other people? Will she hurt or betray someone to get it? Will she push her friends and family away? Will she attempt to take down the government? Will she lose herself?

If your character is best friends with a dinosaur, why does it matter? How will his dinosaur affect other people? Are scientists trying to capture the dinosaur? Does the dinosaur have uncontrollable bouts of violence? Was the dinosaur brought through a time machine that needs to be repaired? Does your character need the dinosaur to learn something meaningful about himself? This should be at least one paragraph.

If you get this far and have a great idea for a story, keep going. If you hit a dead end, go back to step 1 and start over with a new word.

Source: plotlinehotline