Plotted

Okay. Who's a little thrown off by the fact that Christmas is coming up so quickly?

I guess that means I'm running out of time to get this story done and get it submitted to Mavguard... But so are you! Get your work sent in while you still can! (Click Here to access the submissions page)


This week, as promised, we're talking about plots. See, the story I'm working on has already been decided. I've already written the events of the future, so I know how it needs to go, but there are many other ways it could've gone if that wasn't the case. So this week, we're going to go over what I think are the three easiest to figure out plotlines, and discuss whether or not they would make for a good story. This way, I hope to give you a better idea of how to create your own stories, based on the many millions of plots in your head. We all know they're there.

Plot

(part one)

Okay. So we know who our three characters are, we know what they're a part of, and we know aboard what ship most of the story needs to happen.

So what three options did I come up with?

Option #1: Hunters breaching ISS7 a few months after Kaylen is transferred there.

Option #2: Kaylen's first face-to-face encounter with the Hunters.

Option #3: Neal's attempt to transfer Kaylen into Hunter custody.

Now, it's worthwhile to note that none of these are necessarily what's going to happen in the short story. So, no real spoilers around. Don't worry.

Also, like I said, these aren't the only ways the story could go. These are just the options that seem to flow most logically, in my opinion. 

 
Now: the real question is, are there any problems with any of these plot options?


The easy answer is no. The broken down answer is as follows.

Option #1:

This sort of story is explored very often. We usually like to see how rookies act in new situations, like having the bad guys on their turf for the first time ever. But. It can also be a little cliched, because we've seen it so many times. There's only a few ways that we can carry things out without taking it out of the short story zone, so this might not be a good option to explore. If, however, you're very good at being ultra concise and not following basic cliche, this might be your best option of the three.

Option #2:

This one isn't bad either, but again, it's the rookie meeting the bad guys for the first time. Obvious storyline much? But that doesn't mean it can't be a good storyline. You'll just have to put in the extra time to make it something we haven't already seen before. We're all trying to avoid cliche here. Most of us fail at that at one point or another, don't worry. You're not alone.

Option #3:

Personally, this one is my favorite. Neal is our wildcard character, and as we saw from his character sketch, he's a little torn on what to do. That leaves us with plenty of options to explore in the story, many of which could be contained to a short number of words. There is also danger of cliche in this option as well, but if you play your cards right you'll easily be able to avoid that.


Out of the three options, I'd say #3 is our best bet. It leaves us with the most options and the least chance of cliche. So for this experiment, we'll go with option #3.

Next time, we'll branch it out and see how many different ways we can take it.


And even though none of this is necessarily what I'll be using for the short story, I've been asked to remind you that everything pertaining to the Earth-Space series is Copyrighted by RAD Writing, 2015.


[love]

{Rani Divine}