What was your character like before this event?

In order to properly execute your plot points by showing rather than telling, you need to start by examining how the event will change your character. It could be as simple as changing their mind, perhaps they had a certain plan set in their mind but this event shows them that it’s a bad idea. It could be something big that changes their perception of the world, perhaps a loved one betrays them or they find out a dark secret. Or maybe it changes their perception of themselves, maybe the event shows them that they’re braver or more capable than they previously thought. Either way, a plot point should visibly affect your protagonist in a major way.

How did this event change your character or their trajectory in the story?

There are two ways a plot point can change the trajectory of a story. The first is by fundamentally changing the protagonist themselves, thereby changing any decisions they will make after this point in the story. It could also simply change the trajectory by giving them new information or direction that affects what happens next and the decisions being made.

A plot point doesn’t involve every conversation and scene throughout your book, but rather purely those that lead the protagonist where they need to go to get to your novel’s climax. When you’re writing a scene that can be considered a plot point, make it more obvious to the reader by clearly telegraphing the drama involved. Write in-scene with short and quick sentences so the pacing feels faster. Have your protagonist react to the information or events of the scene through action, mannerisms, changes in dialogue, etc.

What choice did your character make?

Major plot points should always be accompanied by character choice. Don’t make your readers follow a protagonist who lets the world kind of happen to them. Instead, allow your readers to follow someone who is an active participant in the world and in their own story (AKA someone who makes choices). Character choice is, therefore, an excellent way to telegraph to your readers that a major plot point is unfolding in your novel.

When writing a character choice into your plot, make sure to examine it thoroughly. Why is the protagonist making this choice? Does it make sense for them to make this choice? Just because you need your plot to lead a certain direction, doesn’t mean your characters can make choices they wouldn’t make.

How is your character or the events of the story different afterward?

What has changed based on this plot point? From your perspective, likely very little has changed, but you need to put yourself into the minds of your readers. Has their perception of the world you’ve created changed based on the information they’ve learned in this scene? Or was the protagonist about to head somewhere very dangerous when they learned of a different way to accomplish their goal, therefore totally changing the protagonist’s physical trajectory in the plot? Or perhaps a major life event occurs from which the protagonist will spend a significant amount of the book recovering? Think about what has changed for the protagonist based on the scene you’ve created and make sure those changes are telegraphed in the text. Showing, rather than telling, how the story or protagonist has changed will allow readers to see that a major plot point has occurred.

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1) Exposition

The exposition portion of the story arc involves acclimating the reader into the context of the book with relevant details regarding story and character. The way to show rather than tell your readers the exposition of your novel is by interspersing the details within character action. Rather than beginning your novel with this long history of the world, your story is set in, begin with a scene where your character is in action in some way. They could be running late for work, dreading a first date, or even preparing for a battle in more action-based novels.

These details help ground the story in the ‘present’ of the novel and they allow the reader to learn about the character in the ‘now’ as we’re hearing about the relevant parts of their past. For example, let’s say we’re getting exposition about how your character used to be more jaded but we’re seeing them helping an elderly person cross the street as they’re rushing to work. The reader can directly see that the character has changed over time and this poses a question of what has changed, which you can then answer in the exposition.

2) Inciting Incident

The next stage of your story arc is the inciting incident, or the event that sets your story in motion. This is the event that should answer the question ‘why does your story take place now? Why today?’ There has to be something major going on in the life of your protagonist in order for your story to start where it does. And if you’re thinking to yourself that a major event or character moment doesn’t happen in the beginning of your story, then you haven’t found your beginning yet.

When it comes to showing rather than telling your inciting incident, focus on describing the action and emotion of the scene. The event should be obvious enough to the reader for them to know it’s the inciting incident (again, if it’s not your story needs a rewrite). But to help them along, make sure you’re writing ‘in-scene’ and playing up the drama, emotion, dialogue, and action of the moment. This way your reader will know for sure that this is where the story arc that they’ll follow for the entire novel begins.

3) Rising Action

The rising action involves a series of events (connected to the original inciting incident) that continue to further the plot of the story towards the eventual climax. So, for example, if the inciting incident was an announcement that a tornado will hit the protagonist’s town, the rising action would involve trying to stock up on supplies, trying to create a bunker to hide in, and even the beginning effects of the tornado. And your protagonist will have obstacles along each plot point, so when they go to the store everything they need will be sold out.

In order to show your readers the rising action of your novel, focus on plotting out these points prior to writing them. Make sure your plot doesn’t go through too long of a lull without the rising action coming into play. And, when you’re writing a scene with a rising action plot point, make sure the stakes are high and clear to the reader. The most obvious stakes are life or death, but perhaps one of your rising action plot points is that a character overhears his best friend talking badly about him behind his back. Without even needing to state it, the reader can infer that it’s their friendship that is at stake in this moment.

4) Climax

The climax of the story should contain two elements: action and choice. The main plot of your story should eventually lead to a choice that your protagonist must make. Then, the climax and/or resolution of your story should be a direct result of the choice they end up making. You, therefore, must make sure that both the choice and action of your climax make sense for your character and the rest of the plot points in your story.

If you’ve done your job write, the choice should be obvious to the reader at this point. All of the plot points should build-up to this moment and, although the reader may not know what the protagonist will choose, they should know what the choice will be between. When it comes to the climax, however, the way to make it obvious to the reader is to write in-scene. Forgo using exposition, limit any internal monologues, and don’t use long scene descriptors. Instead, focus on using short sentences to increase the pace and urgency. Use lots of dialogue and action in this moment as well.

5) Resolution

Finally, the resolution involves wrapping up the plot of the story. This is a calm point after the high action of the climax of your story where things are falling into place (for better or worse). Focus on tying up any loose ends in your story here. Make sure any consequences of your protagonist’s choice are addressed.

Instead of directly telling your reader that things are being ‘resolved’, focus on dialogue here. Any important conversations that need to be had between characters with rising tension or characters with unresolved issues should be played out before the reader. You don’t need to wrap everything up in a bow for the reader to know this is the resolution of your story. You need only to make sure any leftover moments that need to happen, happen here.

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1) Decide On a Twist

Whether it be that a character who appears good is secretly a murderer or someone was roped into helping to steal a priceless artifact, you’ll need to figure out what the twist of your story will be. The key thing to remember, though, is that the information itself isn’t the ‘twist’, it’s a crucial piece of action that is backed up by the information.

So, for example, let’s say your twist is that the murderer of your story is secretly a close friend of the protagonist. You must have them reveal themselves through a choice like killing someone in front of your protagonist. Having them monologue the information isn’t a twist, this is what backs up and supports a twist that has already occurred.

Ultimately, before you begin writing your story, you’ll need to decide what the twist will be, the story behind the twist, and how it will be revealed through action.

2) Plot Out Your Story

Next, you’ll need to plot your story in order for it to make sense both from the perspective of knowing and not knowing what the twist will be. You have to make sure the story is logical while your readers are still in the dark, and then also when the shocking twist reveals itself.

If your twist involves a certain character in the story being unlike their outer persona, you’ll need to plot the whole story from both your protagonist’s perspective and theirs. What do they do throughout that alleviates them from suspicion until the end? Why are they doing what they’re doing? Who are they really?

3) Scatter Clues Throughout

As you’re going into writing your story, it can be helpful to leave tiny little almost imperceptible hints throughout. For example, let’s say the murderer is murdering people he feels are responsible for the death of his brother. The protagonist could notice him always wearing a certain gold chain around his neck and later this could be revealed to have come from his brother and serves as a symbol of his dedication to avenging him.

This is a detail that doesn’t feel suspicious in the slightest upon reading so your readers would have no reason to be suspicious, but it also aids the later reveal and shows that you put thought into it if you included this detail early on.

4) Focus On the Choices

As we stated earlier, choice is the key to executing a twist. Therefore you must not only focus on the choice that will eventually reveal the twist, but also the choices being made throughout. This is tricky because it involves a balancing act of sorts. You want the character surrounding the reveal to not be someone under suspicion because otherwise, the twist won’t feel very surprising. At the same time, however, you want their behavior and choices to make sense from the POV of the twist reveal.

It can be helpful to perhaps have a scene that shows them at one scene while the ‘killer’ is on the loose, thereby making it seem as though they’re beyond suspicion. And then you’d later reveal that they did this to throw the police off the scent. Make sure you’re plotting your story well and making sure that all of this person’s movements make sense from every POV while also not allowing them to become an obvious object of suspicion.

5) Revise

As much as you want to believe you’ll nail this on the first try, something this intricate takes multiple drafts. Don’t beat yourself up when the threads inevitably get too tangled or when you hand your first draft to your editor and they notice several areas with plot holes. You need all of the threads to fit together perfectly in order to execute that moment that combines surprise, awe, and satisfaction known as the twist.

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