Want to know the three basic plots you have to work with? How about the seven basic plots? Or 20, or 36. Well hold on to your hats because you have only one basic plot and if you understand this basic concept you’ll have the keys to the kingdom when it comes to writing your novel.
Look through publisher’s lists and you’ll see that the basic plots are character vs. machine, or character vs. nature, or character vs. himself (or herself) and so on. Of course book publishers offer variations on those themes and that’s when you get into the substantial double digit lists of plot possibilities.
But no matter how you slice, dice or splice, the number of plots publishers adore always boils down to one: The Quest.
No matter what kind of fiction you’re writing, book publishers love The Quest. And the entire story is devoted, directly or indirectly, to helping the protagonist achieve the goal by going through the quest.
In your book the goal to be acquired may be a gemstone, or a criminal or world stability, or inner peace of the meaning of life, or the reason by Uncle Bob killed that kid 35 years ago. Getting to the goal is the quest.
In movie talk, Alfred Hitchcock called the goal the McGuffin. A euphemism. It didn’t matter what it was. It had to be in every good Hitchcock movie and it’s in every good book. Getting the goal is The Quest. That’s where all the interesting stuff takes place.
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If you don’t have a quest, you don’t have a novel. You don’t have a reason to even introduce the characters. If the goal is a glass of milk, and all the character has to do is walk over the refrigerator and pour himself one, well, that may be a goal, but there’s no quest there at all. No story, no interest.
This brings us to the difference between literary fiction and popular fiction. Almost always, literary fiction has an inner goal, or a goal of the mind. And the quest is almost always psychological. The goal may be getting more comfortable with the person you really are. The quest is the series of obstacles the character must overcome to achieve the goal. With popular fiction, it’s a goal of the body. Something physical, tangible, something that can be reached by the senses.
The book always starts with an introduction of the main character and, if possible, an introduction of the characters who will present the obstacles. It’s nice if we can see some of the obstacles as well. Not too many, you don’t want to give away the story.
Of course, we’ve also got to see the goal as well. Now, the goal, at this early point, is usually either misrepresented or seen as something relatively minimal. You can hide it. As the story goes on, the goal becomes clearer, more important, and therefore worthy of greater and greater expenditures of resources, time, money, effort.
Ideally, the goal should grow into something so important that the future of the world hinges on the achievement and risking life and limb is a natural exchange.
I think that’s why literary books don’t sell as well as popular fiction. The goals start off as pretty mundane… and stays that way. Hey, how much effort is a person going to expend to discover why the family is dysfunctional.
Next we have the motivation. Why does the protagonist want the goal? Got to be a reason. And a good reason, too. It can start out simply enough. Doing someone a favor, it’s part of their job, or simple curiosity. But the motivation better grow large, fast. Remember, the world hinges on the achievement. The motivation, the goal and the quest all grow in size as the story progresses.
Now we get to that quest. Think of a stair case. Up, level, up, level, up, level. Each rise is the introduction of a new obstacle. It is overcome, and then the flat part of the stair is where the reader (and the protagonist) get to catch their breaths. Notice that each stair brings the protagonist higher. Each obstacle becomes more challenging and more dangerous. How many stairs? How many obstacles? That depends on how big they are and how long you want the book to be. Just don’t get silly.
So if fiction is your goal, make it happen by following the quest strategy for plot development. It’s always a sure-fire winner.
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