Reviving a Saggy Plot

Stuck for plot ideas?

Does your story seem a little thin, and you need some action to pump it up? Scrabbling for new ways to torture your MC (and cast) a little more before they reach the satisfying conclusion?  

What you need is..... my plot-twist generator. It’s free to use, and for your convenience, I’ve included it below.

All you need to do is pick a number between 1 and 17, a letter between A and T, and a second number between 1 and 17. Then jam the three together in that order, and look it up. I’ve done the sums, and ended up with a staggering 5440 combinations of possible twists.

You might end up with “The main character impregnates a wealthy relative”. Wow! Your readers never saw that coming! So what if your main character is female and the wealthy relative is 92? Go do a bit of research about IVF technology and stop whining. This is plot gold, I tell ya!

You can pick the same number twice, but the result might end up a little surreal. But that’s ok, if you’re a clever writer you embrace surreal, and follow that route to a plumper, more satisfying read. And the result may not be more convoluted than some books I’ve read lately.

Your otherwise lacklustre period romance might benefit from the introduction of an extraterrestrial to the plot. Or you might need to go back and write in a butler for your struggling farmer family. But, as I’ve said, that’s no hassle to a clever writer like you.

And if you’re really stuck for ideas, repeat the process five times and you’ll come up with a reasonable narrative.

The Plot Twist Generator

Pick two of these: 

1.    The Main character

2.    The antagonist

3.    The main character’s faithful sidekick

4.    The MC’s love interest

5.    The MC’s love rival

6.    The MC’s ex-

7.    The antagonist’s sidekick

8.    The power player (that’s writer talk for a secondary character that has information or power to help or hinder the MC, such as Dumbledore in the HP series)

9.    The illegitimate child

10. The MC’s long-lost father

11. The MC’s mother

12. The MC’s boss

13. A wealthy relative

14. The butler

15. An old gypsy

16. A spy

17. An extraterrestrial

 Pick one of these:

A.   Overhears a secret regarding

B.   rescues

C.   Is discovered with a smoking gun over the dead body of

D.   Fights with

E.   Impregnates

F.    Kills

G.   Contracts an illness from

H.   Kidnaps

I.      Runs over

J.    Has a brief fling with

K.   Finds a stolen item in the possession of

L.    Falls in love with

M.   Misunderstands

N.   gets framed by

O.   reads a letter addressed to

P.   Loses a big bet against

Q.   Gets trapped in a burning building with

R.   Disguises him/her self as

S.   Gets drunk with

T.    blackmails

So, feedback.....

Procrastinating right now!

Anybody wold think I was trying to scare people away from this blog, as it's been a neglected little creature these past few weeks.
No excuses, just procrastination.
And if you want a moral tale about the dangers of procrastination, I shall share.
A few days after Christmas, an item aired on the news. A jokey item about a firestation suffering some fire damage. Not a due to a major blaze, but one that nevertheless caused red faces, and I dont mean from the heat. The fire led to the discovery that the fire station lacked a working smoke detector. You know, those things that fire fighters continually preach about that could save lives?
Ha! Shoemaker's kids go barefoot, psychologist's kids are brats and so on.
Aha, I thought! I could work this anecdote into the blog about practicing what one preaches. You know, especially about silencing the little voices quash the urgency to do it NOW.
Well, I let it go. And now I cant find a reference to it anywhere on the web, so I'm not able to post a nice little link to the item, and I look like I'm not being truthful. Jokey news reports tend to vanish like that, probably aided and abetted by the fire brigade in this case. The story's about three weeks old anyway.
So my anecdote looks lame. Please give me a kick in the commentary section - I need to hear how you guys stop block the voice that says "Ah, do it tomorrow".