Writing: Plots

I think of plots as the lines on which to hang characters. I guess I got this idea from reading Shakespeare. Still, I worry that I have no idea I know what I am doing - a by-blow of writing without being publishing. 

So I read Plot and Structure: How to Use Structure and Subplot to Add Suspense by Joslyn Chase on The Write Practice. The article defines plot, how to create structure, and then discusses a six point plot structure. Right now I am trying to decide how much of what I have written fits in this structure. While reading it, Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep came to mind as fitting in this structure and how John Dos Passos' USA Trilogy does not.

She also gives a plot structure for short stories I had not seen before:

I started writing short stories using a nine-point, three act structure consisting of hook, backstory, and trigger in act one. Crisis, struggle, and epiphany in act two. And plan, climax, and resolution in the final act.

 She then provides a succinct explanation of subplots, their design and use. 

Do give the article a full read snd then think on it.

sch

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