Welcome to The Writing Coach. On this podcast, I speak with the instructors, editors, coaches, and mentors who help writers and authors create their art, build their audience, and sell their work.
In episode #124 of The Writing Coach podcast, we explore multiple techniques for filling in gaps in your plot. You’ll learn:
- How a manuscript doesn’t need to be written in chronological order
- Why macro-level story structure is always key
- How to use “why don’t they?” questions
- The huge impact moving objects from one character to another can have
- And much more!
Listen to the full episode now or read the transcript below.
The Writing Coach Episode #124 Show Notes
Get Kevin’s FREE book: NOVEL ADVICE: MOTIVATION, INSPIRATION, AND CREATIVE WRITING TIPS FOR ASPIRING AUTHORS.
Read KM Weiland’s Scene and Sequel post.
Episode #124 Transcript
Hello beloved listeners, and welcome back to the writing coach podcast. It is your host as always writing coach Kevin T John’s here I am running a group while I’m running a couple of group coaching programs right now, one of which is the first draft program, which is primarily focused on helping writers get their first draft completed along with a ton of training and support in other educational resources and all those good things. And several of the people in that program participated in the story plan intensive challenge. I ran a couple of months ago, or a couple of weeks ago, man. It all blurs together now <laugh> but the challenge was a 30-day challenge. Get your book’s entire outline done in 30 days and learn a ton of writers, craft fundamentals along the way. And what that means is most of the people in this program, actually, all of the people in this program have a great outline for their first draft.
So they are sitting down and they are drafting that manuscript based on a rock-solid outline, but as always happens, things don’t always go according to plan. Sometimes a client of mine, a writer will be working on a manuscript and they’ll realize, oh, I need a scene here. There’s a scene missing. That isn’t in my outline. And so that happened this week. One of my clients said, I realized I need a scene in between the one I plotted in my outline and the following scene. I plotted in my outline. And her question was, how do I figure out what needs to happen in that scene? And this is a great question because it comes up a lot. We think we have everything locked down in our outline, but things change things, grow story is organic characters come alive on the page. We have more cool ideas as we’re writing.
And so how do we fill in the gaps in a plot midway? And this is something, you know, a lot of what I teach. Isn’t very applicable to dancers. I, I’m not big on the pantsing. I really teach craft fundamentals and I teach story planning before you sit down to write, but that said, what we’re going to cover in today’s podcast is probably going to be applicable to pantsers nearly as much as it is to planners, if not more. Because it’s really about how we figure out what needs to happen next in our stories. So as I said, my client posted that question in our group forum and the group is just filled with so many great, talented, intelligent writers. Some really experienced people in there along with the new people. And so several people spoke up and, and provided their own advice in terms of what they do when they’re not quite sure what needs to happen next.
So the first person to respond said they just skipped to the next scene. They stick to the outline and they say, I’ll come back and I’ll fill in that scene later on. Once I have a better understanding of the story as a whole and what is needed in that moment, which is absolutely true. There’s no reason that says you need to write chronologically. If you’re stuck on a scene, if you need to do some more research, there’s nothing wrong with dropping that to come, TK, in there, moving onto the next scene and then coming back and filling in that gap at a later time, you don’t want to hold up your forward momentum on your drafting because you’re stuck on figuring out what needs to happen. Next, another idea that came up was from an author, who’s writing a book with multiple POVs and what he said was if you’re not quite sure what needs to happen next with the POV character for the scene you just wrote, well, why not cut to a different POV O character point of view character and get their view on the story, or perhaps even cross that over with what you just saw in the scene, you wrote pick up from the tail end of it.
Only from a different character’s POV. And so if you are writing a book where different scenes are from different characters’ point of view, that’s a great option, you know, cut to someone else and give us their take that character’s take on what’s happening in the plot. Another response that we got was from a client of mine who loves to just hop around when he’s drafting, he’s a mystery author and he does not write his first draft chronologically at all. He’ll pop ahead back four, if he feels like it. And so that’s what he said to her, similar to the client who said, well, just skip the scene. You haven’t figured it out yet. And go to the next one. What he said was, go to any other scene. You know, there’s no reason you have to write in chronological order. There’s no reason you have to figure out what that next scene is right away.
And so, you know, before I’d even chimed in there was some great advice, you know go skip to the next scene cut to a different POV, cut to a different scene, totally elsewhere in the book. These are all ways that we can get over being stuck in that plotting phase of trying to figure out what happened next. And this is one of the great things about group coaching programs. You get all kinds of different people’s point of view, which is just awesome. So those are some good tips on kind of how to skip the problem area and move on with your drafting. I’m gonna provide some advice now in terms of what can you do to actually figure out what needs to happen. One thing you can do is use the scene and sequel model, the writing instructor cam WLAN has a great image or, or kind infographic on this concept.
And she talks about it on her website. Maybe I’ll, I’ll link to it in the show notes for this episode, head over to Kevin T johns.com and link to the scene and sequel model image in there. But what this model suggests is basically most scenes are either a scene or a sequel, which means something’s happening or someone’s responding to, to what just happened. And so if you are not sure what needs to happen next in your plotting, we’ll take a look and say, was the previous scene a sequel or was it a scene? And then that will give you a lot of direction in terms of how to figure out what needs to happen in that next scene, what type of scene it needs to be another option similar to the scene and sequel option is the Triptic approach. The reality is we’re rarely writing standalone scenes.
We’re usually writing scenes that contribute to part of a sequence and as with most things in life and most things in writing that 1, 2, 3 structure beginning, middle and end is often quite useful even when you’re writing sequences. And so the Triptic approach says that every three scenes can involve a setup scene and action scene, and then a scene where we see the consequences of the action or the fallout of the action. And what I actually like to do is see that the consequence scene overlaps with the setup for the next Triptic. So again, look at the missing scene in your plot, then, that hole you’re trying to fill and say, is it a setup scene? Is it an action scene? Is it a fallout consequence scene? And again, that will give you a starting point for the types of things that need to happen in this missing scene.
One of the most simple answers or solutions to this problem that I recommend again and again, and again, is return to macro level story structure, everyone who goes through the story plan intensive program chooses a macro level story structure to use as their plotting model. And one of the reasons this is so useful is for this exact reason, when you are writing a book and you’re at some point in the plot and you don’t know what needs to happen next return to macro-level story structure. If you’re early in act two and you’ve chosen to use the hero’s journey and you’re not quite sure what should happen next, look at the hero’s journey. That section is generally called tests, allies, and enemies. And so say to yourself, does this need to be a test scene? Does this need to be seen where we meet a new ally?
Does this need to be a seed where we meet an enemy? I was thinking about the wizard of Oz, as I’m, I’m always thinking about the wizard of Oz structurally and when they were scripting that film. And when the original book was being written, you know, it’s quite possible. The plot outline says doth, Dorothy meets the munchkins, Dorothy meets Scarecrow, and then Dorothy meets the Tin Woodsman. And then it’s quite possible when the story was actually being written, the writer be it, the writer of the book or the writer of the film said, huh? You know, I think we need something in between meeting scarecrow and meeting the tin woodsman. You know, flow-wise, pacing-wise, we can’t just have these back-to-back meeting new allies scenes. So perhaps that author looked at the hero’s journey and said, oh, well we need some tests or enemies here.
And thus the apple scene is, is created. You know, Dorothy sees a tree, and she goes to grab an apple from it. It turns out the tree is alive. The tree’s pretty grumpy about having its apple stolen and starts throwing apples at scarecrow and Dorothy and in the process scarecrow and Dorothy actually pick up some of the apples that were thrown to them, throwing at them, and now they have something to eat. And so it’s both an enemy scene. The tree is an antagonistic force, but it’s also kind of a test scene. We see that together, scarecrow and Dorothy have not only just overcome the enemy, but they’ve got some food along the way. They’ve passed a bit of a test in terms of can they survive in awes. And so when you’re looking at your outline and you’re saying what needs to happen next you’ve returned to story structure.
It’ll give you so many ideas for the types of things that could or should be happening in that section of the book. Another great technique is to simply ask yourself and then respond to why don’t they questions, especially when you are writing. I mean, genre of any kind as, you know, crime thriller sci-fi action. So often the reader, if they have any intelligence, all is gonna be asking themselves, why don’t they just run away? Why don’t they call the police? Why don’t they use their cell phone to call for help? Why don’t they get in the car and drive away? Why don’t they use that gun that we saw two scenes ago in this scene? And so if you have a little gap in your plot and you’re trying to figure out what needs to happen next, this is a great opportunity to say, are there any, why don’t they questions that I haven’t answered?
What sort of, why don’t they questions are going through the reader’s mind at this point, as they’re reading the book and how can I answer some of those questions? And, and that might be a great stimulation or inspiration for what needs to happen in that scene. Another great fallback is taking an important object. That’s currently in the book, whether it’s the McGuffin or, or something else, a weapon or object that’s associated with a certain character and move it to another character. <Laugh>. So if, if you’ve been writing a book all about a bowler and, and loves bowling and you’re in a plot gap and you’re like, what needs to happen next? Well, maybe what needs to happen next is someone steals his favorite bowling ball, or there’s some sort of confusion and someone else goes home with his prize bowling ball.
What happens then? What does that do to the story? It’s really surprising how moving objects around from one character to another can be really interesting. I think light SAS, you know, star wars, one of my favorites, lightsabers are so associated with the characters who carry them. And so what happens when a character loses their lightsaber or it gets broken, or it goes somewhere else, you know, a lot of plot points can happen from taking an object that we associate with one character and moving it elsewhere. Another thing that kind of falls under that, why don’t they technique is simply the question, why doesn’t the protagonist or point of view character run away from the challenge they’re faced with, regardless of what genre you’re writing. I mean, even literary, all stories are about conflict and drama and human beings have natural instincts to conflict in danger, the fight or flight response, do we freeze up or do we run away or do we face the danger in front of us and the conflict in front of us.
And most of our Western storytelling is about heroes who overcome their fear and stand up the whatever challenges are thrown their way. But we also find ourselves quite off quite often asking ourselves as readers, why doesn’t the protagonists just run away from this conflict? This is too dangerous. This is too heart-wrenching. This is too whatever, why don’t they run away? And often we need to find a reason to tether our heroes, either to the antagonistic forces, to the McGuffin or the forward momentum of the plot. In some way, we need some reason they can’t just turn and run. And I mentioned this is even more so applicable in literary fiction because in literary fiction, often the antagonistic force, it’s the character’s own internal thoughts, feelings, experiences, flaws. You can’t run away from yourself. You can’t run away from who you are.
And, and so that’s a pretty great reason not to just run away from the antagonistic force. In other cases, Luke Skywalker cannot just run away from Dar Vader because dark VAs, his father, it’s his destiny to face his father, Harry Potter can’t run away from Voldemort because they are psychically connected. And there’s even a prophecy that says only one of them can live. These little plot points are there to emphasize why the hero doesn’t just take the easier path. So if you’re looking at your plot, you’ve got a plot hole there and you’re saying, huh, what sort of thing needs to happen in this scene? Well, maybe it’s an opportunity to remind the reader or to explain to the reader why the hero is stuck on this journey, why they’re destined to push forth through the challenges and why they can’t just run away or call for help.
So these are the types of amazing discussions we have in my group. Coaching programs. If you wanna learn more about them, if you want to get an opportunity to sign up next time, I open up the doors ahead on over to my website, www.kevintjohns.com. There’s a popup where you can fill in your email address in there, or you can click the link at the top that says free book. And when you opt-in to my mailing list, you’ll get a free copy of my book, novel advice, inspiration, motivation, and creative writing tips for aspiring authors. It’s a collection of essays, little tidbits of information and support that I think you’ll find really helpful, especially if you’re a beginning writer, but also if you’re more of a seasoned writer, we can all always use a little inspiration and motivation, and we can all continue to learn our craft. As, as I’m continuing to do. Every time I sit down and work with writers I’m getting new insight into how I can help them and how we can all tell better stories. Well, if you are staring at a plot hole right now, if you are at a point in your manuscript or in your outlining where you are not quite sure what needs to happen next, I hope that you found this episode helpful. Remember to hit that subscribe button, and I will see you on the next episode of the writing code.
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