Plot: Unfolding the Story

In creative nonfiction, you observe life’s particular moment as it unfolds before your eyes, ears,
nose, skin, or tongue. In observing, your senses deliberately or incidentally notice something or
someone. Your mind records a certain picture, taste, feel, or sound of that particular moment.

These details are just that- facts and information that do not have any meaning or significance-
until your literary mind intervenes. Your literary mind shapes these details in forming a plot. As
in literary works, creative nonfiction follows the plot structure of rising action, climax, and
resolution. The plot is the formal and careful arrangement of facts and information that shows
the story’s dramatic, thematic, and emotional meaning.

Plot Points for Developing a Plot

Let's try to improve your plot development skills by learning about plot points. Plot points,
according to Robert McKee, are "any development that sends the story off in a new direction.

Consider plot points as the three heartbeats of the story.

Beat 1 Beat 2 Beat 3

Event: something Action: somebody Reaction:
happens reacts Success/Failure

Let's take the plot points about a traffic aide in a quiet and cool afternoon.

A traffic aide calmly stands at a four-way intersection, watching cars and pedestrians
pass by. Do you see any plot point here? Clearly, there is none. The traffic aide does not react
because nothing is happening (yet). He has no cause for action.
Then a motorcycle with a driver wearing no helmet whizzes by, its engine roaring at full
speed. Here's a plot point, the point of reaction for the traffic aide. It completely changes his
calmness on the street.

Plot Point 2: 'The motorcycle crashes into a pedestrian crossing the street and knocks
her over.
Plot Point 3: The motorcycle driver jumps off the motorcycle and runs away on foot.
 Plot Point 4: The traffic aide calls for back-up while checking the condition of the
pedestrian who remains conscious but already bleeding.
Plot Point 5: An ambulance and paramedics arrive and rush the woman to the hospital.
Plot Point 6: When the traffic aide visits the hospital, the woman and her family could
not thank him enough.
Plot points provide you with a skeletal frame on which to write the beginning, middle,
and end of your story. It outlines the possible shape of the facts and how you will
develop it into a full story with all the imaginative details you want to write.

The Importance of Plot Points in Plot Development

In his book Writing Creative Nonfiction: Fiction Techniques for Crafting Nonfiction (1987),
Theodore Cheney states his belief about putting a structure to the story's plot before even
beginning to write it. He writes:

“I believe that you should know the ending before you begin writing. Knowing this and
knowing how to open the piece make the middle rather easy to write. After all, the middle
must somehow take off logically from the opening, and it must lead with inevitability
toward the ending you've decided. Not that you'll necessarily know the actual words of the
ending (although you may have), but the general thought behind the ending will have been
in mind all along, guiding your choice of words and ideas. If the ending is there, it'll act as a
magnetic pole drawing everything toward it, first gently, and then, as the ending nears,
irresistibly.”

For Cheney, knowing how the story will end saves you a lot of time choosing what to focus on
and thus spares you all the needless trouble of writing and revising.

Using Conflicts in a Story

Conflict is opposition and struggle, whether between characters who have opposing
goals, or between a character and their own inner demons. Sometimes conflict lies between
characters and their environment (in adventure novels, for example).

Conflict supplies the stakes and odds that create rising and falling action. If, for example,
in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings cycle Frodo’s quest to destroy the One Ring were simple and easy,
the story would be predictable and boring. Smaller and greater skirmishes along Frodo’s way
create lesser arcs of tension and release. Multiple conflicts of varying size give stories their
unique shape and character.
 Conflict also is a crucible in which characters can grow and change. Through facing inner
and/or external adversity, characters gain new insights and strengths. They overcome flaws or
give in to them. Conflict is thus a key agent of change.

Types of Conflict
1. Person vs. Person
This is the most common story conflict. Conflict may arise in every kind of
relationship, from friction between a character and their overbearing parent to
conflicts between heroes and villains.

2. Person vs. Nature

This is particularly common in survival stories. A great person vs environment
conflict can thus show what your characters are made of, while also planting the
roots of further perils and consequences.

3. Person vs. Self

Internal conflict is another common type of story conflict. Emotions such as
shame or jealousy are powerful motivators. Characters who have flaws, who
struggle with some aspect of themselves, are intriguing.

4. Person vs. Society

The conflict between an individual and their society, the ‘fish out of water’ story,
is another popular source of friction.