Plot Islands

Imagine that we are looking for a story like mariners looking for a lost island. The sailors scour the horizon, trying to pick out something, until one spots peaks of land rising above the ocean. As the ship draws closer to the island, the people on the ship see not just the biggest peaks of the island, but the lower parts that connect them. They can make out the details of the island: whether it is fertile or barren ground, whether there are trees, beaches and so on.

Sometimes, planning a story works much the same way. The writer doesn’t have a clear idea of the details, but knows what the major landmarks of the story are. These are the highest peaks of the island. Depending on the story, they might be action scenes, conversations or discoveries. They are, however, needed for the story to function. For example, the high points of a mystery might be the discovery of the body, the vital clue, and the revelation of who the murderer is. All of these are needed to tell the story properly and it wouldn’t work without them.

Once these are identified, it becomes easier to spot the things that connect them – the lower parts of the island. If we have to have a dead body in a country house at the beginning, it is unlikely that the middle part of the book will be set on a space station. Agatha Christie wasn’t a great author, in my opinion, but she was an expert in understanding the shape of a mystery story, and her best books did clever things with this expected shape to surprise the reader.

I’d also say that there are two sorts of high points on the island: action ones and ones relating to emotion and character. Sometimes they flow from each other and are part of the same thing (a villain is captured and confesses his villainy), but other times they are different scenes (two characters realise that they are long-lost siblings, and aliens invade). On occasion, you get a subplot that informs the main plot of the story or repeats it in a different form. I think once you start recognising these important points, you get a better idea of how to connect them in the most natural fashion, and it becomes clearer what the story is really about in terms of theme.

To further wrench this metaphor, it’s possible for two similar plots to have two quite different “islands”, depending on how the author wants to stress the story. Say a character is given a mission, but is then betrayed by his superiors and proceeds to take revenge on them. In one version of this story, the high points might be the action scenes where the character tries to carry out the job, when he escapes his betrayers, and when he takes revenge. In a more philosophical version, the peak of the story might come where the hero realises the wrongness of his career post-betrayal and wrestles with his conscience.  

While I don't consciously think of islands and peaks when I'm planning, I think this is close to the way that my mind works. In some ways, it's a process of discovering as you write, but it isn't flying blind: the details are guided by the big picture.