Turn your novel or short story into a story that your readers won’t soon forget! Fiction writers spend long hours working on their plots because of its importance to the storyline. If your plot needs a little spicing up, allow this article to get the creative juices flowing.

It's all going perfectly; well-developed characters, a great setting for your novel, maybe even a few finished chapters leading into the meat of your story. Then, out of nowhere, your story starts to fall a little flat. Stunned, you have no idea where your story is going and how it will make it to the ending.

Developing a strong plot is always a struggle for writers. Sure, there’s plenty of creativity floating around up there, but something always seems to be missing. You’ve got a beginning and an ending. But how do your characters navigate from one to the other without getting lost?

Let’s write a short, simple story as an example. Togther, we’ll write a suspense novel. Of course, your story will be much better than today's example, but it will give us a place to start so we can see how our plot builds up.

The following exercises are also great for building and developing individual scenes.

Example Story Idea: Mary had a Little Lamb

Getting from Point A to Point B

Chances are, you know how your story starts and have an idea of how it will end (or vice-versa). Let’s label our sample story and see how it works out.

Point A (Starting Point): Mary has a little, white lamb that won’t stop following her.
Point B (Ending): Mary gets rid of the lamb, once and for all.

The question: How does Mary get rid of that annoying lamb? I think we’d all like to know. Let’s start by elaborating on what we already have.

How Does it All Begin?

Before Point A
A little lamb named Woolly got lost in a large meadow one day. Young and scared, the lamb traveled for several days until he finally sighted Mary, a young girl who lived on a big farm. Mary took pity on Woolly and decided to keep him as a pet.

Okay – so it’s not the best story idea in the world. But we know we can make this much better. Now we get to walk through the story and make it a best-seller.

Where is it going?

All we know so far is that Mary will get rid of the lamb by the end of the story. There are a few possibilities: Mary could murder him, or sell him to the local butcher shop. She can pull him on a wagon, blindfolded and tied and set him free in the woods to be eaten by bears.

For whatever reason, we choose another route.

At Point B
Mary will find Woolly’s mother and reunite them so that they can be a family. Now Woolly has someone to follow for the rest of his life. Mary is finally free of Woolly and can make some friends at school.

Why are we going this way?

If a story went from the beginning to the end in two sentences, that won’t make for a very good read. We need more… but what?

First, we’ll try to figure out why Mary wants to get rid of the lamb. We’ll brainstorm together.

Woolly always follows Mary to school. Her school teacher is very strict and has a rule that no animals are allowed in the classroom. Mary repeatedly gets detention and has to wash the blackboard and mop up Woolly’s mess after school. The school isn’t properly funded and has no air conditioning. She always smells funny afterward because she sweats a lot serving detention. The kids at school laugh at her because she smells so bad, and it makes Mary sad to not have any friends.

Perfect. There is no further need to brainstorm. We’ll go with this motive. Now we get to figure out the lamb’s motives.

Woolly is a needy lamb. He’s afraid of getting lost because it has already happened once. He feels that following Mary everywhere she goes is the only solution. He stalks Mary because he doesn’t want to lose her. He’s already lost his mother.

Okay. That one’s good, too. We’ll keep it.

Characters, check. Motives, check. We actually have a pretty interesting storyline! Now let’s fill in the blanks.

Drawing the Plot Map

Now we know a whole lot more than we did before. We’ll chart our progress by writing a plot map.

Before Point A: Woolly got lost and found his way to Mary. Mary loves lambs and decided to keep Woolly as a pet since all her daddy’s animals are fat and ugly.

Point A: Since then, he hasn’t left Mary alone for a second. At first, Mary is delighted to have a great pet, but later regrets her decision. Woolly will not leave her alone!

Before Point B: Woolly follows her to school, which is against the rules. It lands her in detention where she sweats her socks off, cleaning up Woolly’s mess. She smells as a result, and all the kids laugh at her. If Mary wants to be popular in high school, this lamb must go! So she makes a plan to rid of the lamb by finding his mother.

Point B: Mary finds Woolly’s mother. Woolly now has someone else to follow and thanks Mary for bringing him home.

After Point B: Mary no longer sweats after school. This means that she smells clean and fresh, which makes her attractive to others. She ends up making a bunch of friends and lives a happy life from that point on.

Filling in the Blanks

Of course, this story is far from finished. There is much writing to do to fill in the blanks between each point. There will be many more points as the story progresses.

What happens between Before Point A and Point A? What happens between Point A and Before Point B? Of course, we can’t continue to use the A’s and B’s because it will not work for a more complex story. But as your story grows, you’ll see scenes and chapters develop before your eyes. If we were to continue building the story, Before Point A might become Point A, and Point A might become Point B. No matter what you decide to label them, the blanks must be filled in all over again.

Using this exercise to write your whole novel is unlikely, if not impossible. It will, however, come in handy when you’re not sure of how to get your story to move in the right direction. You may find it helpful to try this exercise when you get a severe case of Writer’s Block.

Use whatever tools you need to develop a great fiction read. Your best-seller status depends on it! Writing a book, especially fiction, is difficult, and only those who are dedicated and vigilant will make it to the finish line. Keep reading, keep learning, and keep the creative juices flowing.