NaNoWriMo: A story skeleton leads to a plot
Back in 2004, Jim Butcher, author of The Dresden Files series, started a blog about writing. He only made a double-handful of posts, spread out over four years, but he said a lot of useful stuff. The one thing that stuck in my head was this simple but useful tool. The story skeleton boils your novel's plot down to its most basic elements. If you can't fill in the blanks, you don't have a story yet.
*WHEN SOMETHING HAPPENS*, *YOUR PROTAGONIST* *PURSUES A GOAL*. But will he succeed when *ANTAGONIST PROVIDES OPPOSITION*?
Let's try this:
After running away from home and stowing away on an interstellar cargo ship run by smugglers, 9-year-old Nathaniel just wants to get back home. But will he succeed when the smuggler's ship is hijacked by aliens?
I keep trying to figure out how my stories end before I've figured out the central conflict. I think the story skeleton helped with that… it doesn't ask how things end (the climax), it insists on knowing who gets in the way of the main characters goal (the antagonist) and why he's an obstacle (the conflict). You can't have a story without conflict, and apparently I've been trying to come up with a resolution to a conflict without knowing its nature first.
There, my book has a plot. Looks like I'll do some outlining tomorrow.