Showerthought: That moment my plot outline collapsed because the protagonist's motivation stopped making sense around page 60.

Last Tuesday I had to scrap 3 weeks of notes for a short story when I realized the main character wouldn't actually do the thing I had them do - how do you guys find the failure point before it kills the whole draft?

2 comments

2 Comments

wells.olivia1mo ago

when I realized the main character wouldn't actually do the thing I had them do" - oh man, been there. That's the worst kind of plot death, the slow bleed. My trick now is to do a "motivation check" every 20 pages. I write a quick sentence from the character's POV about why they're doing what they're doing. If the answer feels forced or fake, I know something's wrong. Also I started doing character interviews before I write anything. I ask them stuff like "what would make you walk away from this?" Their answers tell me the failure points before I even start. Another thing that helped - I make a list of 3 things my character absolutely would NOT do. Then I check my plot against that list. If the story requires them to do one of those things, the plot is dead. Time to rewrite. Sometimes you just have to kill your darlings and start over. Better to lose 3 weeks than 3 months of work.

ninas671mo ago

The motivation check every 20 pages is genius, I'm totally stealing that one.