A story’s core comes from the plot. Whether it’s a story about characters or a story about events, a true story begins with something happening. It can be as simple as a character has their wallet stolen or as complex as an attempted assassination of a young monarch. Even if the character doesn’t do anything beyond sitting at the kitchen table contemplating their lost wallet, it’s still a story instigated by something. If nothing happens in a story, there is no plot. So, where does plot come from?
For me, plot comes from conflict and breaking of usual patterns. It comes down to finding the one thing that can make the character’s day, week, or life worse and pulling at that thread. What they do from there becomes the plot. They could make allies or enemies, find a clue or get more lost, succeed or fail. The inciting incident is the plot, but the character’s choices are the story.
A good story has a “Try-Fail” cycle, where even if a character succeeds, they find their in a new circumstance. But the plot comes from the character trying, failing, trying again, and failing again until they succeed. Plot points are choices and their decisions and reactions create more plot points for them to choose between!
Recently, on my twitter, I started playing a Choose Your Own Adventure story that I wrote out. Combining the challenge of interesting choices and hyper-short format, I find that the most interesting thing is what people choose. Sometimes, it’s an undisputed agreement. Sometimes, people will lead one way or the other (requiring me to make a coin flip to decide where the story goes). It’s fun to think about how this is all spreading all the way that people naturally want to explore the space of a story.
What makes a good story for you? Does the character need to succeed after a certain number of tries or does the uncertainty make you want to keep reading? Is the hope of success enough to overpower the fear of failure?
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