Keeping Plot Simple, So Characters Can Be Complex

I came to writing thinking I loved complicated plots. And some little corner of me still does, still dreams of that perfect book with twists and turns at every corner and characters who are perfectly poised to be devastated by each one.

Except . . . that isn’t ever one book. It’s a series, or a very long series. In the actual stand-alone books with twists coming fast and furious, the characters are—for the most part—cardboard cutouts. Or, rather, wisecracking cardboard cutouts.

Real characters, those we not only feel we know, but actually care about, need some space to breathe on the page. They need scenes of where they came from, who mattered to them in the past, and how those same people affect them now. We can’t know what a given twist in the plot feels like to that character until we’ve stood in their shoes for a bit. Felt their fears. Felt their disappointments, their hopes.

I’d been sensing this, feeling it as a universal truth more and more with each manuscript I’ve tackled, and then someone said it. Thank you to screenwriter Matthew Bird, author of Secrets of Story, who said it most succinctly:  

‍All the complications in the world don't add complexity, which is what makes a story great. …a good plot should be simple enough that both the characters and the audience understand it just by looking at it. …a good two-hour movie has a one-hour plot. 

‍When I read these words, I felt that gratitude you get when someone says out loud what you’ve been feeling and unable to phrase. It was like being given permission to breathe. Or, rather, to let my characters breathe.

I know they need it. But crafting a plot that’s simple without being utterly non-existent, i.e. that “book where nothing happens," is not as simple as it sounds. I’m struggling with it in my newest manuscript, finding that I know what emotional journey I need to map out, but what are they going to DO on this journey. If the plot isn’t driving the train, which actions feel organic and natural and still get them to where they need to go?

For me, in trying to map out just enough of what I need to start drafting, I have to give myself permission to NOT fill in the plot.There’s a good deal to be said for trusting yourself to figure it out as you start writing. When you put pen to paper, characters start having lives of their own and what they’re going to next gets decided for you. If you can trust it. Which means keeping your characters atcthe forefront of your thinking and letting plot flow from there.  

We’ll see how I do on this round . . .