Before the plot is revealed, what are the stakes being deepened? This begs the question of how many non-plot-point twists a reader will tolerate before the author runs the risk of having the actual plot point dismissed as another “cry wolf.” Even a writer who turns his nose up at the idea of structure should beware sabotaging the reader’s trust this way.

I hate to play Devil’s Advocate (okay, I love to play Devil’s Advocate) but whenever I hear about the virtues of violating the “rules” of fiction I remind myself of two things.

First, that structure isn’t an arbitrary standard imposed as artifice upon the free spirit of fiction. Human beings are animals with very real cognitive patterns and biases that make a huge difference in how information is received. It’s not for nothing that story structure exists: they reflect how our narrative instincts are geared to receive stories.

Second, I think of one of the most successful stories of all time, The Lord of the Rings, which has been roundly criticized for (among other things) dragging along too much at the beginning about the details and routines of the Shire, in other words delaying the plot point. Does LOTR deserve to be held up as a masterpiece of storytelling? Absolutely. Could it have been even stronger if a lot of that introductory material had been stashed away in one of Tolkien’s signature appendices? Clearly.

Writers should think of story structure not as a rigid cage stifling our creative autonomy, but like flight engineering that enables us to travel where we otherwise could not. Sure, there’s more than one way for a vehicle to fly — we have airplanes, helicopters, blimps — but all of them work with the rules of aerodynamics. The human psyche is the atmosphere of the narrative: the better a story harmonizes (mythodynamically?) with its flight environment, the more weight it can carry and the further it can fly.

It was only when the protagonist had something to fight against/for did I start to care at all. This happened about two thirds of the way into the novel, and the last third was by far the most interesting part for me; it actually had some story!

I’m always inspired by reality television, actually. The human dynamic is the most additively fascinating thing on the face of the earth and I never cease to be inspired from a parade of humanity. Hello, reality television!

Whether it’s The Amazing Race, The Biggest Loser, or Survivor – you can really get inside the human mind. The things people will do, promise, and become to attain what they want…. crazy!

Great idea for a post. You’ve given me a lot to think about.

what i consider my first plot point now appears later than i originally planned, because i’ve had to gut a storyline from the novel in order to keep my word count down to a publishable length. the result of this is that my first plot point appears around the 33-40% mark. (with the other plot line, i was looking at a total of 150,000-170,000 words, and that storyline was mostly found at the end of the novel)

i’d been very concerned about this, and am relieved to hear that it is mostly a guideline instead of a hard and fast rule. i think that i have enough twists and surprises during the set up to keep the reader engaged, and i’ll have to trust my beta readers to let me know if i’m wrong once i get my first revision finished.

The murder is just part of the Part 1 set-up. And after the taxi conversation, notice how the next quarter of the story (Part 2) is a “response” to what we learn (what the hero learns) in the actual taxi plot point scene.

A great example of how a story can have many HUGE scenes with high drama, but the plot points remain as fixtures with specific missions.

By the way, “Collateral” is a great example of virtually everything about story architecture, all four parts and all the milestones, and including character elements, theme and scene construction. Michael Mann is one of the best directors out there, in my opinion.