by: Alysa Curley
Have you ever had a wonderful idea for a character, the story, or a message that you wanted to share? This then is for you, as it helps for you, the writer to have a some clear plot goals while developing your work.
To begin with, you the writers, should have the idea that the Goals in the story define the plot, meaning that what your characters are striving for lead the story into the plot. After all plotting is a verb, and in general it is showing the cause and effect that your characters choices are or aren’t leading to.
First, figure out the character traits that your protagonist possesses at the beginning of the story.
Let’s say that your protagonist is a boy. In fact a young man who has just started college would work fine. What kind of characteristics would he have? Is he smart, naive, athletic, curious? For this example let’s say that the young man named Josh is:
- Attending college on an academic scholarship
- Looking for a part time job
The next step is for you, the writer to determine what kind of genre this story is going to be. Do you like more Science Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, or perhaps Crime genres? The genre you choose will then determine the overall goal of the protagonist.
For science-fiction, maybe the job he interviews for, involves highly advanced technology. For thriller maybe he sees a a mysterious figure around the campus. I am sure you understand the idea.
For my example Josh is staring in a story about crime.
Now that you know what kind of character you have and the genre of story that you are writing the last step in developing your plot is to determine 2 things.
What is your character’s long term goal?
While your character is in the story are they looking to go against a physical antagonist. Such as the general bad guy/organization that is preventing the goal from being meet or completed. Or is the characters main struggle internal in nature. A story in which they are trying to overcome a certain fear or moral dilemma. Good stories tend to have their antagonist going through both as it depends plot and character development.
Focus on your character transitions.
With this I mean that in your plot the last thing you have to consider is how the challenges in the story are going to change your character or inlighten your character to the fact that they will not change. Meaning that it leads to a realization, for your character and audience, of how going against the antagonist changed the characters ideas or morals or rather how no matter hard they try cannot change no matter how hard they try.
After you have all of this figured out, you have all the plot goals for the story you are writing. Express your dreams, aspirations, and knowledge to your readers in a way that makes that makes you both happy and proud for what you have done.