Is something’s wrong with your manuscript but you can’t put your finger on it?
You’ve done everything. Solid plot. Interesting characters. Each scene has “goal/conflict/cliffhanger.” Stellar setting. Details fascinate your critique group. Yet, publishers or agents lack enthusiasm. They might even say your writing is competent and interesting but they pass! So what’s the problem?
Often, I find writers miss something mighty simple: “the plan.”
Not your plan as a writer. Your character’s plan!
How does your character THINK?
Frontline characters need to operate by hatching plans constantly and using those plans.
A big enough story to fill a book, a script, or a memoir involves layers of plans.
A “plan” means a character cares enough to worry, think, fear something, want something, and they are willing to put forth effort to PLAN to get it.
Characters conjure many plans during a story, never just one plan.
The big plan could be the plotline, such as how to commit the biggest heist in history, or your character has to tell somebody they love them by the end of the story. But…
Novel pages are nests for the hatching of many small plans that entertain readers.
To reach the end of any plot, your characters must have a series of plans. They voice plans in their head, through dialogue, and certainly through action.
Let your character think about “Step one, step two, step three that I need to do.” Let them fear some steps, change some steps, mess up their plan.
Novels such as A MAN CALLED OVE by Fredrik Backman (mainstream fiction) and THE LEMON MAN by Keith Bruton (comic gritty suspense) prove the point. Each protagonist creates one plan after another; they often backfire; at all times the plans propel the protagonist forward to the next phase of his plot (and growth).
By the way, effective romance novels, horror stories, fantasy, YA novels—or any genre or type you read or write in—will have stellar standouts with a plan always operating to make things interesting.
We read partially to see if the plan even works. There lies the tension that makes reading a sublime activity.
Look again at your opening pages of each scene and each chapter opener.
Does your character express they need a plan? Are they in the middle of a plan—and more importantly, does the reader know that? If you’re at a loss as to how to do this, have them think in words such as “I need to get/do X, but that will mean I need this and that. It might also mean I’ll get busted/fail.”
Have the character need to do at least two steps next. Why two? Because taking two steps propels your character AND THE READERS (who might be agents/publishers) forward.
Readers like “plans.” We love being “in on the plan.”
Let a plan backfire now and then, too, as happens in all good stories. Obstacles should abound.
Finally, a plan is almost always physical, too. How does your character think ahead? Do they write things down? Do they mumble their plans to their plants? Dog? Friend? Do they go out and buy stuff for the plan? Do they visit a psychic or a priest? Do they bulk up their muscles over months of time? Etc.
Plans = pacing, plot, and sales.
Creating plans on most pages is a simple quick fix.
Christine DeSmet: Author 