Let's Build a World: Day 13 - Plot Hooks and the Speculative Element

[ladyseishou]

He fishes well who uses a golden hook.

- Latin Proverb



It's Day 13 for Nano Writers's Let's Build a World. Read over: Plot Hooks and the Speculative Element from Stephanie Bryant's 30 Days of Worldbuilding. Time to get out your notes from yesterday and read today's exercise:

If you have some idea of your plot by now, get out whatever plot notes you have and write down ten things (minimum) that your speculative element can do to your plot.

If you don't have any ideas about your plot, but you do know what kind of speculative elements you want in your novel, that's fine. Just look at your notes for that element and start asking yourself "what could I do with this element? Can I have my hero or villain use it? Refrain from using it? Is it a threat? A convenience? Both? What happens when it fails?

What events can be framed around this speculation, and do you want those events to show up in your novel? {The litmus test for whether or not they appear in your novel is whether or not they fit into the novel's mood or theme, or otherwise grab you by the collar and yell "AHA!" at you}. Write down ten (minimum) things that happen which involve or rely on your magic, technology, or boogymen.

You don't have to end up using the plot hooks you've generated here, of course, but they help your speculative element become a more central part of your story, rather than serving as "background noise" to your novel (a la space opera). And you'll probably find that, when your plot begins to falter (usually around the middle-- plots always falter around the middle), you can grab your list of plot hooks out of your notebook and find something that helps push the story along.

Some links that might be helpful:

Create Your Own Instant Plot Hooks

oblique strategies - random "card" generator

10 Writing Hooks


Do you have what it takes to hook 'em, Nano Writer? Come by tomorrow for the next installment!