Got a great character concept, but no idea what sort of story to tell about that character? Or… want to write a story set in a specific context, but have no idea how to create sensible character plot conflicts within that setting?

Do you struggle to come up with enough ‘incidents’ to fill your story line, while keeping character behaviour consistent?

if you answered yes to any of those, then this course is for you.

Step back from more traditional and complex seeming approaches to plotting, and try something different (that even works for pantsers!)

You will learn how to create a story / plot fast, easily, and in a way that will make your characters feel well rounded and deeply real.

Pantser? Discover how to get your characters to reveal the plot, ahead of time!
Plotter – but struggle to come up with enough ideas for plot points? Learn how to tap into endless ideas….

The course will comprise an introduction plus 8 lessons (delivered as PDF with online discussion), a conclusion and limited direct assistance with the implementation of what has been learned.

There are three optional assignments, and if participants wish to do them, they should have a specific WIP or idea that they will work on for those assignments.

The introduction covers the principles on which the course is based – why should characters drive your plotting, what impact does doing this have on the consistency of characterisation throughout your story, and on the alignment of character actions with personality, why does taking this approach make plotting easier and quicker, why does this work for people who have traditionally been pantsers. Also a very quick definition – this is not ‘another story structure type’ – this is a methodology for getting to a plot, which can be overlaid on almost any story structure that you might want to use.

The lessons after that cover the following:

• Defining story context – What world do these characters live in?
• Choosing your characters – Who are they?
• Refining your characters’ backgrounds
• Understanding their strengths, weaknesses, goals and motivations, within the context of both the world they live in, and their backgrounds (Optional Assignment 1 happens after this lesson, and involves the participants submitting a short character definition for their two main characters.)
• Assessing how those goals etc might bring them together/put them in conflict, and beginning to capture ideas for possible plot incidents (Optional Assignment 2 happens here)
• Refining those plot incident ideas, and getting a feel for how many of them might fit together in a single story
• Do these characters/this context lend itself to a series? If it does, what ideas might you reserve for a later book? Reviewing the ideas you have identified as suitable for being in a single story, and working out how to intensify those ‘incidents’ in a way which leverages the characters personal qualities for greater drama or conflict.
• Creating a ‘book plan’ from what you have done, which will still allow full flexibility for pantsers, yet provides a solid, believable, consistently ‘in character’ story with a satisfying ending, and no plot holes or continuity issues. (optional assignment 3 happens after this lesson and asks participants to submit their book plan for comment and instructor feedback)

The conclusion sums up what has been learnt, and what the next steps from this are, to overlay this technique on common story structures.

There will be a Zoom call to allow Q and A, in a more direct fashion than posts on the course platform.

Participants will learn:
• How to better make their characters consistent, throughout their story, so that there are never any moments where the reader thinks ‘hang on, this character, as presented up to this point, would never do that!’.
• How to get to having enough ideas for incidents to build out a full story, even if you are just starting with an idea for one moment.
• How to record their ideas, in a way which stays flexible, so that it can change during the writing, without breaking the overall plot concept.
• How to use questions, internally, to make ideas rise to the surface
• How to have confidence in their ability to create a character which is rounded and ‘real feeling’ within a world context.
• They will benefit, in that their writing will become easier in many cases, and the characters that they create will be more realistic / have more depth, in a way that supports the incidents which happen in their story, rather than being separate from that.

The course is unique in that most courses on plotting are very focused on story structure, and on rise and fall of tension. This course sees those things as secondary—they are what you do to present the plot incidents in a manner that keeps the reader flowing through the story—but they are not what creates those incidents in the first place.

What is primary, in this course, is allowing the characters, as you define them, to provide you with all of the ideas you will need, to then layer into any story structure you like, to result in a cohesive, consistent, and tension filled plot/story, with minimal mental effort on your part.