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Q. How are plots and scenes brought forth from creativity even in case of writer's block?

A. Whether struggling alone or sharing inspiration in collaboration as in the open common projects on this very site, one salient point to bear in mind is that even though a finished plot must generally be linear, in the activity of fiction writing and the process of plotting probably should not be, perhaps, unless the story readily unfolds from premise.  - Especially in Science Fiction, and even after deploying the futuring methods of Futurology.

All else in the logic of plotting scenes readily follows from pertinent decisions what need be shown regarding motivated characterization and every level of conflict with dramatic obstacles. Indeed, even the world-building details of setting may derive plot.

• in six steps

Storycraft: IDEAS into PLOT as in Science Fiction, is concerned with putting imagination and premise, extrapolation, defining and solving problems into the practice of plot development. Being naturally construed in terms of what they are likely to do, characters may also be derived from their function in the plot as they are introduced  and reintroduced. And by the logic of deconstruction, consistent story elements and variations expand and unfurl out from one another. In the rewrites, details reexamined serve as clues to a more rounded story.

• Plotting worksheet

For there are stories that unfold in full, just tumbling forth, relentlessly and at a breathless pace, from a compelling premise, one so vastly consequential in it's myriad ramifications that quite literally makes every difference and just won't let go. But, otherwise, what if the premise only goes so far on it's own?

In such case, even fully capitalizing upon the situation unfolding from the premise, at some point the plot must begin to evolve beyond the initial concept in order to sustain interest, best achieved via an unexpected development in a relationship, a surprise plot complication, twist, Peripeteia such as estrangement, or by the addition of any new motivating goals ever put forth and/or added obstacle. Misdirection, whether error circumstantially and honestly, by deliberate manipulation or even hamartia and self-deception, is key in moving from promise to catastrophe. Explore alternate scenarios if only to escape the obvious.

Characters need to be at all up to their challenges, but only barely. No Powderpuff Pitty-Pat!  Prolong the Agony by making life difficult so as to motivate characters. Even pander to vicarious wish fulfillment, but also inspire pathos, anticipation, by every Technique of Suspense plotting, even dread and the outright discomfort of sheer aversion. Stir any range of emotions and force the reader to empathize, to feel. That's what makes for good entertainment, a real gripping page turner. To propel conflict, the Protagonist and Antagonist characters must display complementary psychologies such that the motivating desires and intentions of the Protagonist are bound to arouse the motivating fears of the Antagonist, and vice versa. Throughout the plot, the tension and pathos, even discomfort and aversion, of every Technique of  suspense in plotting, building tension and anticipation, are all heightened as thing are made more difficult, the personal emotional stakes are raised, and character growth is pressed by worsening complications for an active protagonist, definitely including onstage sex! Virtually all relationships of whatever kind begin with some sort of first discovery, romance even courtship, so to speak, even "the honeymoon," but inevitably and come into conflict on different levels, friction which is normal and even healthy, and in order to survive must reach acceptance in order to commit to substantive cooperation and collaboration.

And there are various techniques by which to chose and then show events unfolding in scenes and half scenes or vignettes. 

• The Screenwriter's Master Chart

Write out your raw material, organize it, rewrite, revise and then proofread. There are many different Writing Strategies and approaches. Even without clue or qualm as to the shape of the finished work, consider the write ideas for the technique of the pod story that begins first in writing scenes, even mind mapping or Clustering vignettes and allowing an ever clearer picture unfold in the imagination over time and flesh out the scene and characterization with more scenes culminating into an entire back story which becomes the plot. Indeed, there is agreeable related application of Improv.

Complexity and depth help draw in the audience. Explore alternate scenarios if only to escape the obvious. Navigate the various possible paths and dead ends and to find stories always dig deeper for insight into difficult struggle. Draw connections and string together multiple elements, to arrange and rearrange the storyboarding components one already has, in order to then understand the implications and fill in the blanks, perhaps, as may often be beneficial when faced with writers block, by brainstorming, even from random stimuli, an Affinity Diagram according to the Kawakita Jiro method. Indeed, techniques of Strategic Planning may even be redeployed for charting the interlocking details of an involved plot.

To achieve Writer's Unblock, first recognize where the block lies. Organization like corrections, only comes after at all jotting down anything whatsoever to correct or reorganize in the first place. So, if unclear even where to start, Begin With the End or even envisage the publicity materials and work backwards! Screw around. 

The rôle-play techniques of Improv are made use of to help flesh out situations into motivated dramatic scenes, and are among the 15 Tips To Help You Move Forward.

• Editing the Mystery - ingredients
• Writing is rewriting and never a waste of time!  Murder Your Darlings with skilled killer instinct - paring away enough dross to find the heart

^{TIGHTENING the} SAGGING ^{MIDDLE or Midpoint}

Curing the _Sagging Pace

Thickening the plot

Observe dramatic economy. Eliminate needless redundancy, Use it or loose it! Many works of fiction in progress pitter out and grind to a halt for want of any clear story direction, as yet.

What to do when the author has painted themselves into a corner or when the story has exhausted itself? What can go badly wrong is to fall back upon overblown cliché of pointless unlikely revelations and new uninteresting and poorly motivated enemies for impersonally huge battles thus loosing all distinctiveness of the story. And the simplest alternative is simply to end the story when it can move no further forward.

But even that may seem predictable and disappointing.

Or with a plot twist, obstacle, complication, Peripeteia, or estrangement, the story can change direction entirely.

• Best usage of the plot twist generator  

But perhaps most deft will be throughout, by rewriting backwards to prepare the third act, to move characters into some however modified situation that will propel the story when all else is spent, for example, by the emergence of new and further ramifications, by developing supporting characters complete with preexisting relationships, to take central stage to replace principle characters making their exit, or additional developments sowing confusion and affording the perpetrator a new alibi just in the nick of time, and so on and so forth.

• How To Make Plot Work Harder
• plot weakness and diagnosis   
• keys to writing successfully

Prolong the Agony by making life difficult, so as to to motivate characters. Even pander to vicarious wish fulfillment, but also inspire pathos, anticipation, suspense even dread and even the discomfort of sheer aversion. Stir any range of emotions and force the reader to empathize, to feel. That's what makes for good entertainment, a real page turner.

So, don't be nice to your character! No Powderpuff Pitty-Pat! Throughout the plot, the tension, even discomfort and aversion, of suspense, anticipation and pathos, is heightened by increasing difficulties, the personal emotional stakes continually raised, and character growth is pressed by worsening  complications for an active protagonist, definitely including onstage sex! So navigate the various possible paths and dead ends and to find stories always dig deeper for insight into difficult struggle.

Remember the time honored maxim:

Writing is rewriting

,

helpful INVOLVEMENT, ongoing rounds of editing and revision of prose, one's own or for anyone else, and never a waste of time!    

 

Less is more: "Leave out the bits that people just skip ahead."  — Elmore Leonard

 

Come late and leave early. Edit!  In the immortal words of Alfred Hitchcock:  "Drama is life with the dull parts cut out." An efficient scene should be entered as late in the action as possible, and then transition to the next scene just as soon as everything crucial is revealed or has transpired. Otherwise, there had better be any purpose either in building up before hand or lingering on afterward. Whatever motivation establishing conflict on every level with pathos in fight scenes needs must come before hand and even such crucial exposition and background information as the terrain is best established immediately before a chase sequence, usually lacking dialogue unless it's short and clipped.

 

“I'm sorry. If I’d more time, I would have written a shorter letter.”   — Marcus T. Cicero

• The Top Ten Mistakes New Fiction Authors Make
• style!

One way or another, anything else important or desired can be added but only without loss of focus into anything becoming extraneous, including complications, subplots, secondary characters. Insufficient build up of tension, failure to continually raise the stakes, every level of conflict and tension, will result in too high a low point, not deep enough a hole to dramatically force the protagonist to a realization of taking action. The characterization may even be well rendered and motivated, but the inciting incident giving rise to conflict on any level at all, is still missing.

• Developing the Dark Moment

Or the plot, the causal sequence of events needed to bring the characters to the climactic conclusion of the story is not adequately thought out, and needs to be better worked through even according to an agenda. Indeed,  perhaps the author has created too difficult an obstacle for the characters to overcome, or even backed the protagonist into a corner, with no escape save by resorting to the most contrived solutions. In such case, the tools, characters and situations can be plausibly altered or added in a simple reedit, going back through the story to add whatever necessary props including Chekhov's gun, as may be needed later on.

Indeed, whereas journalism and history generally rely upon expository summary, the narrative of fiction can be rendered from sources and inspiration in reality and elaborated into imaginative details of action and dialogue in order better to "show, don't tell."

• Five Ways to End a Play
• END THOUGHTS
• seeking climax

First and foremost, plot is your enemy.

So if all else fails, force yourself to sit and draw stick figures and write simple declarative sentences. Or try these exercises.

Fresh ideas for writing can be gleaned from news and non fiction, reverie, dreams, personal life experience, by drinking in the setting, astute measure of situation, skillful observation in the study of human behavior, yes, people watching and then spinning fantasy or even by eavesdropping outright.

And, in case the author struggles with a message, the THEMATIC PREMISE SHEET explains how theme, essential understanding or recurring concept, (such as nay be conveyed via some symbolic Objective Correlative motif or topos), when made central, can bring together the other elements, such as conflict on every level with motivation, into a truly dramatic plot with any pathos. Indeed, many a classic theme is reducible to proverb.

For what is sought here is no less than resolution to the conflict of true to life dramatic plot for the eternal story of writer's block! A tragedy wherein the hamartia, the blind error of maladaptation by the writer inconveniently mismatched to the writing challenge, greatest personality flaw or, worse, greatest literary virtue, but perhaps in disproportion, leads only to the misfortune of writer's block! Unless, that is, writer's block can be heroically overcome! For we writers, too, are ordinary flawed folk, often so much our own worst enemies, that our own "inner villain", manifest as writer's block, may provide enough of a dramatic obstacle all on it's own to keep the outcome, creativity or frustration, in doubt.  A real life personal drama or melodrama, as the case may be, arising from one's own actual emotional core. Because, always, restless dissatisfaction is the indispensable motivation for creativity and artistic growth. But it can also become an obstacle, Ecclesiastical vanity, attachments of the ego,  the gateless gate of the Zen Nihilism...

Raising the emotional stakes for characters may heighten drama on the page, if convincing but melodrama if not, even as inspired by the inner conflict of the author. Unless, alas, the author is paralyzed from writing on the level of personal inner conflict. In such case, actually lowering the emotional stakes for oneself and confronting unrealistic expectations may help in unblocking the flowing creativity. Because, if unfiltered notions still will not seep into mind and pour out onto the page, indeed, in case writer's block indeed arises from a dearth of ideas such as might meet whatever personal high standard or aspiration, then one simple cure for writer's block may be simply to lower one's standards, even to admit (or perhaps even rescue and resuscitate) Horror and Other plots we see too often.    

                                    

tips What do you suppose was Mona Lisa thinking while Leonardo Da Vinci was painting her? ____________________ Body language can quite often be most telling in photo-analysis, revealing surprising truth behind snapshots and portraits   501 Writing Prompts

  

   profitable pen  

                    idea catching journal prompts

                                                        How Do I Start a Writing Prompt?

                           finding concepts

     in adaptation, allusion, alteration, culture, auto/biography and even chick-flicks!

Nuggets of gold from the raw materials of the very flow of words

         25 Unique sources

          Surrealism

• The Theory and Practice of Titles
•  Lisa's Writer's Block Pages

Type of conflict is part of what determines genre. Writing : Plot by by Damon Knight [summarized] deals with plot problem types as classifiable by whatever their motivated goals ever put forth or story endings, while 'A Guide to Mystery Genres' classifies by tone and details of setting, George Polti's classic and still controversial '36 Dramatic Situations (plus one)' classifies inciting incidents or circumstances that will, no doubt, make for an exciting mix and match with the 20 Master Plot Exercises. And Wise Women Discuss—Plot! lists the different basic plots, dramatic structure as defined by interconnection among the levels of conflict with different obstacles. -Including, of course, conflict with an enemy, the more interesting, however, if the enemy and protagonist share any mixed feelings. Indeed, any good story needs interpersonal conflict even among friends. As with Spock and Bones, probing and bickering. And, especially, as with Spock, inner conflict, ambivalence and angst, with all of the obstacles life provides us to carry with us, inside. 

Indeed, even random clichés may be utilized for Stupid Plotting Tricks.

"Now, thanks to the brand new PLOT-O-MATIC™, you can come up with plots just like the big boys do." 

Yes, one can always fall back on stock plotlines or even The Well-Tempered Plot Device! And learn how to create a conspiracy theory in 4 easy steps. Of course, such may do little justice to any even remotely intriguing premise. Indeed, without some twist, a standard plot may only be the more compelling if there are intriguing variations upon it's stock elements.

After sufficient experience in imitation, individual preference emerges to begin shaping distinct style, the writer's restless dissatisfaction finally bearing fruit. A happy ending, at last, to the dire tribulation of writer's block. 

Better still, consult the excellent companion list of The Things I Will Do if I Am Ever the Sidekick. Although, it isn't always the heroes who just can't find good help! By whatever circumstance or obligation, tragic mobsters or warlords are frequently overtaken by events running out of control, no thanks to trusting, against all better judgment, angry, callow, stupid complex and well motivated henchmen, often family or in-laws, who disregard all cautionary instructions against opportunism or vengeance, thereby thwarting the sagacious tragic mobster or warlord's confident and carefully laid plans and efforts towards victory, the perfect crime, or even at averting bloody catastrophe by careful strategy and tough but fair minded negotiation. An excellent standard plot or subplot, depending upon who is the central character. Indeed, if whatever sort of protagonist is too sensible and moderate, there can always be any of the supporting cast more impulsive and foolish in whatever conceivable ill considered motive, for any warning to the wise to go unheeded, one way or another.

In any case, if the story must turn upon disregarded obvious good advice, then then in a character driven story, such events must turn upon strong motivation, either pigheaded or highly principled or both at once or even hamartia. Or in a complex plot oriented story, in a plot digression the wiser course is first attempted but somehow thwarted by circumstance. Or, most dramatically, an attempt at howsoever the wiser course may instead press a character into conflict on every level with their own motivating values for which they will be compelled to sacrifice the easier way because the moral course and the more difficult among free willed choices may so often coincide.

G. E. Moore derided the very notion of ethics ever founded upon scientific principles, as: the naturalistic fallacy, because ethics strives to define what ought rather than what is. Thus science, he claimed, can’t get an “ought” out of an “is." After all, philosophy has never actually produced a falsifiable assumption for ethics. Only given any moral premise can scientific investigation up to any point, ever shed light upon possible and likely consequences of behavior informing responsibility towards whatever choices free to us.

If there is a God who keeps His own secrets, withholding certainty only unto Himself, then, likewise, Godlike responsibility can solely be for God alone, and by design. Hence it can only be the human struggle from from uncertainty with human responsibility, within the fallibility of all as much and as little that is given us to know, that will ever be pleasing to God, a passionately uncertain struggle " . . . since the possible number of actions in the universe is unlimited -- as is the number of possible situations from which actions may proceed and take their tone -- morality is ... too complex to be knowable and far too complex to be reduced to any code . . ." - John Gardner, On Moral Fiction

• Heuristic Methods for Computer Ethics -whys and wherefores of the failure thereof...

After all, getting things right is seldom so simple as it sounds, and frequently takes some doing. And so, there may still be a story in there...

• Best usage of the illustrated story generator

Random Science Fiction Story Ideas

Writing flash fiction using bubble diagrams is an application of Mind Mapping to creative writing. For this purpose, Hatch's Plot Bank or the Random Story Starter can be supplemented with the Random Character Maker and Random Character Namer or DADA's Little Baby Namer, city names, too.  Name, Name, Who's Got the Name? Analyze names, even pets! Or just click the Random Logline Generator!

And find much more at the Seventh Sanctum and

A common subplot is the development of a relationship, an alliance necessary to further the main plot. Virtually all relationships of whatever kind begin with some sort of first discovery, romance even courtship, so to speak, even "the honeymoon," but inevitably and come into conflict on every level, friction which is normal and even healthy, and in order to survive must reach acceptance in order to commit to substantive cooperation and collaboration.

Keep dialogue short, snappy, interactive, dynamic, subtle, meaningful but simple

• THE HENTAI Tarot for your Kisekae set kiss player FREEWARE.

• The Vampire Chronicles Mary Sue Plot Generator

• The story arc applied to common Romance plot scenarios

Q. What is sex appeal? 

-Or, Was it Good for You Too? 

 

   A. Click HERE! You know you want to! 

Discover why sex really is quite possibly the most important thing!

         

For writers no less than their characters, pandering and personal disclosure alike often present such barriers of inhibition to overcome as self-consciousness or even sheer anhedonic moralism and squeamishness outright.

 

Setting, the environment or milieu, can also be crucial on shaping personality or characterization, and may actually be made central in the writing techniques known as world-building.

The virtual lit interactive tutorial exercises cover all The Formal Elements of Fiction

dramatic plot structure may be reviewed and even generated at random, utilizing the   Story Generator

<The instructions on the Story Generator page, however, omit to explain perhaps the most important and uniquely powerful features of this fantasy quest oriented tool, namely, the check boxes, to be used separately or together:

"Keep" allows any stock story element(s) to be retained even while the various unchecked elements are replaced at random by clicking the handy "Give me another Story" form button. While the "Description" check box supplies an expanded definition of any story element(s), new or kept, upon clicking the "Give me another Story" form button.

 

Also, for some reason, the genre selection is mislabeled as "theme", and the randomly selected choices, though impressively comprehensive, quite frankly tend to be pretty hokey!  But if such does not fit or satisfy, then the challenge may be of symbolic analogy and metaphor, to derive from these archetypes into new context anything less categorical, more human and thence to produce a work better dimensioned beyond blatant cliché.

Indeed, for just such added dimension, additional prosaic story elements of more sophisticated literary narrative and even a proper thematic hint can be supplied by judicious utilization of the Instant Muse Story Starter.  

    Also for poetry.

 

And then, there is alwaysThe Tarot.

Or mix'n match with the Myth Brainstorming Machine

Try Making Fairy Tales  from Personal Stories or select your functions to enter into the proppian fairy tale generator. Also, the Do-It-Yourself Fairy Tale Kit has been automated as the Fairy Tale Generator 2.0.

 

 motivated Character creation tools:

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• Sitcom character motivation as a Driver of plot
• Plot and characterization rendered most inextricably Perhaps the most believable characters defined by every aspect of their circumstance and relationships, and when the life events of the character are principle subject, plot, rather than merely preexisting background or color of "Act Zero." 

Character Analysis: "Given Circumstances" of Situation

Character Portraits: Record The Inner Person

  Fiction Writer's Character Chart

A. There is nothing wrong with 'Star Trek' except bad writing, and seldom ever anything right with 'Star Trek' that does not begin with good writing. Same as with anything else...