Tag: plotting

Planning and Plotting

Is there a difference between planning and plotting a story? Writers are told to plan all the time. Young writers, especially, are taught how to plan reports and narratives. They are told planning is important. But why, exactly, is planning important and how is plotting a narrative any different from planning one? 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐧𝐮𝐭𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐥.

Planning

Deciding on what to write, organizing your thoughts, and laying them out in a coherent order. This is necessary because it allows young writers to generate and gather ideas.

EXAMPLE: My story is about a girl who lives with her stepmother and stepsisters who treat her like a maid. She sneaks away to go to a ball and meets the prince. They fall in love. The girl runs away from the ball and leaves a shoe behind. The prince uses the shoe to find the girl. They live happily ever after. Her stepmother and stepsisters are banished from the kingdom.

Plotting

Deciding on what to write, organizing your thoughts, and laying them out in a way that shows how each event and action is connected to the others. Plot shows cause and effect.

EXAMPLE: My story is about a girl whose father died and left her with her stepmother and stepsisters. Because the stepmother is angry about the father’s death, she treats the girl badly. Over time the girl eventually becomes their maid in her own house. One day the rulers of their kingdom throw a ball and the girl is forbidden to go. She cries and pleads for help and her fairy godmother appears to help her get dressed and go to the ball. At the ball, the girl meets and falls in love with the prince, but has to leave quickly because the magic spell stops at midnight. In her rush to get away, the girl leaves a shoe behind. The prince finds the shoe and decides to go looking for her. The stepmother is furious with the girl and tries to hide her from the prince. But the shoe only fits the girl, so the prince eventually finds her. They get married and live happily ever after. The girl, who is now a princess, banishes the stepmother and stepsisters from the kingdom for treating her badly.

The Difference

In addition to being more detailed, the plot shows how the events and actions in the story are connected. Notice how the plot shows why certain actions are taken and shows the consequences too. This Cinderella story is more complex and complicated than the type of story young writers have to produce for SEA. Narrative essays for SEA are much shorter and easier to plot but should still follow the same cause and effect format.

When young writers plot a story instead of just planning it, they are able to see how the conflict works in the story. Rising action is also easier to identify, and writers can effectively plan how to solve the challenges.

To practice plotting with your young writer, first create a plot development list they can follow and use as a worksheet. List each aspect of the plot in the order they should be developed. Then, fill in the information as needed. After several attempts at plotting stories, young writers will become more proficient at creating exciting stories.

For more information on how to plan reports, check out this post.

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How to Write “The Events That Follow” From a Prompt

How do you begin a story when the prompt says, “Write about the events that follow”? A few months ago, we posted about understanding writing prompts. It’s the first step in writing a great narrative.

In this post, we’re expanding on those ideas to answer a specific question – “How do you start a narrative when the prompt says ‘Write about the events that follow?” Before we get to the answer, however, you should know how the average prompt is constructed. Let’s take a look at one of the SEA 2020 prompts.

Note: Not all prompts will be like this one, but the content is pretty standard.

Review of SEA 2020 Narrative Prompt

In this prompt, you can clearly see four separate details.
The Context – Highlighted in Blue
The Situation – Highlighted in Red
The Directive Part A – Highlighted in Green and Written in Yellow
The Directive Part B – Not Highlighted

The Context tells readers what’s going on. Usually it includes the characters and partial information to guide background details.

The Situation provides details about the start of the conflict. This information isn’t always in a prompt, but when it is young writers need to pay special attention to what it says.

The Directive Part A tells writers what the story should be about. In this instance, writers are being asked to tell a story about what happens after the incident noted in the prompt.

Young writers could be asked to write about different aspects of the story. For example, they could be asked to write about the experience itself, or even how the characters got into the situation in the first place (what led up to the events of the prompt).

The Directive Part B is a standard guide that reminds young writers that it’s a narrative they’re writing and what type of vivid descriptions and sensory details to include.

Ok, so now we’re on to story beginnings. We pointed out what goes into an introduction when we discussed the 5-paragraph Story Structure in this post. There’s a standard format of hook, introduce character, give character a goal, and describe setting that must be included. But what does that look like in this type of story?

Let’s break it down into three points:
1. Since the prompt already gave the context, it’s wise to include some of those details in your introduction. Don’t expect the reader to be going back to the prompt to get the beginning of the story. Young writers have to give the beginning still.

2. Add a few details to support the idea with descriptive language. So, tell readers where you were going with your friends and that you were concentrating on your phone, texting. Maybe even hint at what and who you were texting.

3. This prompt also indicates the complication. The complication is the first problem that starts the conflict, so it’s important to include this detail. What the prompt doesn’t tell you is what your reaction is, and that’s where you would add in details to expand on the situation with descriptive and vivid language. That would be your introduction.

From there, most of the story would be exploring where your friends were, how you found them again, and what happened to them. And, all of this within a plot that builds the excitement and emotional reactions before solving the problem.

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Connecting Cause and Effect

Actions and reactions must be connected. This is the simple truth that often eludes some young writers. Many have fantastical ideas that run away with their thoughts to the point that it’s a challenge seeing how things are connected. Others race through their ideas so quickly that they forget to make connections clear for their readers, often assuming that certain things are obvious. The one thing that should be made absolutely clear to young writers is that nothing is simply obvious to readers. Remember, readers have their own ideas and thoughts which may be quite different from the writer’s. And that’s ok, but it’s important for writers to see that as a challenge to create clear and descriptive stories.

This is why understanding the link between cause and effect is worth sharing with your young writer. Every action has a cause. Every action has an effect. So have your young writer thinking about why characters do what they do. Ask questions such as, “How does this action affect the others in the story?” and “How does this action lead to the solution?” If there’s a ripple in a bucket of water, what caused it and what does the ripple mean? These are the things readers look for. What’s the significance of each action that’s happening in the story?

Short stories create a little challenge here because there isn’t a lot of time and space to develop all the details. But that’s ok. Young writers don’t need to develop a lot, they just need to connect the ideas.

One of the best exercises to help young writers make connections between events is to have them plot out stories. They don’t always need to write the full narrative, but seeing the connection between events during the planning stage can be very instructive. Have some fun making up funny ideas and connecting them with action toward a logical end. And get your young writers thinking!

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