If I had my life to do over again, I would be an evil emperor. It's not just the power, the money, the women at my command. It's not even the ability to obliterate the jerk who parked in the handicapped parking spot, then sprinted into the store. It's the plotting. If there's anything I enjoy, it's coming up with a truly wicked plot.
And plot, the thread that binds the loose-leaf scenes of a story together, isn't spun by leprechauns from straw. You can't pay a frog to retrieve your plot from the bottom of a pond with a kiss. Plot is a byproduct of something else, and should arrive naturally in a story as you understand your character's desires.
Everybody wants something. Most of the time, they want several somethings.
From the brooding billionaire in his bat cave, to the sultry sex-tress in her latex allergy activating skin suit, everyone wants something. That billionaire wants his parents back. If he can't have that, breaking the noses of every two-bit punk in the city will have to suffice. The sex-tress wants a nice cotton outfit with elastic, and some comfortable running shoes. A bra won't hurt, either.
The characters in your story want something too.
Then they go after it.
When two characters want opposing things, we have conflict. Conflict is the driver for the scene, producing the tension you need to keep a reader asking "What comes next?" and yielding logical outcomes.
Repeat after me: My characters want something, and they are going to go after it.
Now, for the refinement. Your characters are probably lazy. They will go about it in the easiest way possible, taking the shortest path to their goal, unless other conflicts drive them in an alternate direction. That villain in your story? If he could get his billion dollars, would he want more, or accept it and go home?
Plot is the series of actions that characters take to reach their goals. The side arcs are where conflict forces the characters to pursue other things to allow them to return to pursing the main goal.
Your characters should always act in keeping with their desires. Note that they may have many different desires, competing. This builds internal conflict and drives external conflict, because your character may take longer, or different routes to his main goal in order to fulfill different desires.
While I'm ranting, for the love of $deity, remember this applies to every single character in your book. All of them have something they want. Now, admittedly, some characters are little more than cardboard stormtroopers, but if a character has lines or interactions, it helps to know what they want.
Love interests aren't there to provide a convenient place to hang a pair of boobs or a dong. They are people with their own set of desires. Much like people in real life, your love interests will be a lot less annoying if they have goals beyond "Find someone of the opposite sex to complete me."
A few days ago, I sat with another writer, read through a chapter, and asked "Why? Why would the MC do that?"
His answer: "I've always wanted to write a scene where that happens."
That's not a horrible answer, but you get there by having someone whose desires drive them to act in that manner, not by writing the scene and bolting existing characters onto either end, then doing a find/replace to patch up names.
Desire leads to actions.
Opposing actions lead to conflict.
Conflict yields tension.
Tension keeps the reader turning the page.
Plot is the action and reaction as people act to fulfill their desires, receive or are denied them, and then formulate new ways to reach their desire.
The end result of character motivation driving their actions is that your characters are believable. "Yes, Character X would do that, because he really, really wants [McGuffin]. But he won't get it that way, because he wants to be seen as [attribute]. So obviously, the wild scheme that involves more parts than a Ford truck makes sense, because it's the only way to satisfy the character's desires.
End of rant.
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