Five Baisc Elements of PLOT

Natalie Bright

The plot is the thing that moves the story along. How you craft the plot can make a different between a best selling page turner to unforgetable and unsaleble. According to Donald Maass in his book, “Writing the Breakout Novel” one of the mistakes beginning novelists make is to write the sequentail activiities of a characters’ every day events. This makes for very dull reading. The goal of story craft is to hold a reader’s attention.

He lists the five basic plot elements:
# 1 – a sympathetic character
#2 – conflict
#3 – reinforcement. Conflict must twist, turn, deepen and grow.
#4 – climax
#5 – resolution

“Writing the Breakout Novel” is an excelent book on story craft. Be good to yourself and add it to your writing reference library.