Plotting the Plot

Students are encouraged to learn the following concepts of plot and apply them toward the completion of one story.

Plot: Beginnings, Middles, and Ends

1. Introduce necessary beginning elements of a plot:
Protagonist or main character, the inciting event, and the call to action.
2. Moving into the Middle: The complications.
How things get worse before they get better.

3. The Crisis: Bringing all of the complications to a boiling point.

4. Resolution and End: What gets resolved and what doesn't. Leaving some things unresolved, as in life. How the protagonist, or main character, is changed (the character arc).

Also covered are elements such as linear and nonlinear plots, where to begin the story, flashbacks, and backstories.

Week 1: How to Begin
How to start the story. Choosing a protagonist and viewpoint and setting. The inciting event: What sets it all off. The call to action or how the protagonist commits to the journey.
Reading 1: sample story, focusing on beginning.
(Note: students may, at their discretion, complete more than one story in the class, up to one a week.)
Writing 1: Beginning page(s) of your story that introduces your protagonist, the inciting event, and the call to action.
Week 2: Moving into the Middle. The complications: things get worse before they get better. Flashbacks, backstory, and foreshadowing.
Reading 2: sample story, focusing on middles
Writing 2: next pages of your story. Include at least one complication; hint at backstory and/or short flashback; foreshadowing.

Week 3: The Crisis. The complications intensify and force the climax.
How to weave all of the plot threads together into one and pull tight.
Reading 3: sample story, focusing on climax
Writing 3: Continue your story, the events leading up to the climax

Week 4: Resolution: What to untie and what to leave knotted: what to resolve and leave unresolved.
Nonlinear, nontraditional plots as time allows.
Reading 4: sample story, focusing on the resolution.
Writing 4: your resolution, the events after the climax and to the end of the story.



Instructor: Stacia Ann

About The Instructor: Stacia Ann is an Linguistics Lecturer and Writing Instructor at the University of California. She has a doctorate of Education, Master's of Art in English/TESOL. This instructor has taught writing classes for over ten years. She also teaches academic writing and English as a Second Language at the University of the Pacific. A published author including works of short fiction and academic nonfiction including contest winning stories.