If you’ve been reading the Hierarchy of Story Elements in order, you will know that I view plot as an emergent property of sorts. Plot comes into being as the result of the theme and the four story roots—the narrative elements of character, circumstance, conflict, and consequence—and grows bigger than the sum of its parts. If you’ve developed the theme and all four roots and checked that they cohere, the bulk of your story planning is done. 

 

    You already know what it is you’re trying to say with your story—your theme. You have a rough sense of where your story is starting and know your protagonist’s emotional starting point as well as where they want to go. Your protagonist has a clear plot goal. You also know the circumstances and other characters that will be in the way of that plot goal. You know what’s at stake story-wide and what’s close to your characters’ hearts so you can give them meaningful consequences when their actions exact a price. Finally, you have a rough sense of the ending in that you know the thematic choice your characters will take at the climax in order to reach or fail to reach their plot goal. 

 

    If you’ve some experience finishing writing stories or you have some great storytelling instincts, you can get straight to drafting from here. If you like to follow certain story outlining methods, you’ll notice that having done the root work is compatible with all of them. The reality is that plotting a novel is an iterative labor. I often have a rough plan and the act of executing that plan changes it and the root work I’ve done ensures that I can quickly check that the changes are coherent and still create a resonant story. So while I will give you my approach to plot planning that I use myself and also with the writers I work with, I am not advocating for a one size fits all approach to plotting. Much more important than having a formulized plot is having an understanding of story principles that I’ve been covering so that you can mold your plot to tell the story you want to tell.

 

    All that said, the two methods I have developed for this purpose are plot questions and a decision points outline. 

 

Plot Questions

 

    While actual plot can come pretty late in the planning process from a writer’s perspective, it’s perhaps the most prominent element from a reader’s perspective. So when I begin plotting, I do keep my story’s needs in mind, but I also begin to consider the reader’s needs. And one of the chief ways readers make sense of your plot, and also measure plot progress, is through plot questions. While readers are rarely aware that they’re doing this, you as the writer should definitely be aware. I generally find this to be a much more intuitive and flexible tool than any of the tools novelists have inherited from playwrights and movie writers, like dividing a story into acts or quarters or having an A and B plot, etc. The primary use value of this tool is to map out the event progression of your story. 

 

What Are Plot Questions

 

    Plot questions are questions that a reader can ask (and does often unconsciously ask) that meet the following criteria:

• Starts with a “will”

• Concerns the story-present and an outcome in the story-future

• Is about the characters’ goals

• There is only one primary plot question at a time[1]

 

    Here are a few examples:

 

Will Kelsier and his crew manage to overthrow the Lord Ruler? From Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. This plot question is hinted at in the prologue, established in chapter two, and resolved at the end of the book. 

 

Will Gideon escape from the Ninth House? From Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. It’s established in the first line and resolved in chapter five by which point it’s replaced by the question of Will Harrowhark become a Lyctor? which is resolved at the end of the book.

 

Will Astrid be successful with her redesign of the Everwood Inn? From Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail by Ashley Herring Blake. It’s established on page two and resolved at around the three quarter mark when it’s replaced by Will Astrid and Jordan get back together? which brings us to the end of the book. 

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    As you’ll notice, these are very specific questions and they should be. The reader will glom on to a plot question once they know exactly what the protagonist is trying to accomplish and wonder whether they will succeed in accomplishing it. And ideally the reader should be able to raise this question early on. Note that both Mistborn and Gideon the Ninth are speculative fiction stories with huge worlds and lots of world building, but they immediately anchor the reader into the plot question.

 

    The effect of having the plot question posable early on is that from this point on your reader can measure progress toward an answer. If readers feel a sense of progress, they are more engaged and the story has more of a page-tuner quality to it. This of course isn’t a silver bullet, but it is one key component of making readers want to read your story. If you grab the reader with a plot question and then proceed to have your characters pursuing matters that are not related to said question, the story will feel like a drag and the reader might abandon it. 

 

    Finally, you will notice from the above examples that your story doesn’t have to stick with one plot question throughout the entire story. Depending on the length, complexity, twists, and structure of the story you’re telling you might have a few plot questions to carry your reader to the end. The key is that the resolution of the first plot question smoothly segues into the second plot question. Often the next plot question is the outcome of the resolution of the previous one. In case you’re wondering how many plot questions you should have, the answer is as many as you need. But if you’re wondering what successful novels tend to do, in my experience the ones that use this tool tend to have one or two plot questions. I’ve not yet read a novel that had more than three, but I’ll be the first to say this is much more likely to be an artifact of my reading preferences and less likely to be a hard and fast principle about what’s possible to pull off effectively. 

 

 

Plot Questions Have Subquestions 

 

    Because plot questions tend to encompass bigger goals that take multiple obstacles to achieve, especially if characters face setbacks, your plot question is very likely to have plot subquestions. Plot subquestions are events or goals that need to be resolved on the way to resolving the primary plot question. In Mistborn, the various characters of Kelsier’s crew all have different assignments to plan the heist to overthrow the empire. So while Mistborn on its surface has only one plot question throughout the entire book, there are a variety of plot subquestions as the cast of characters makes progress toward overthrowing the empire. The key is that in each of them the characters face an obstacle in resolving the question, i.e. there is conflict. 

 

    Plot subquestions are not necessarily always subplots the way we tend to think of subplots. For our purposes here, don’t worry about subplots at all because plot questions function the same whether applied to the primary plot or a subplot. In the example from Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail, the second plot question, about whether Jordan and Astrid will get back together, is technically a question about the romantic subplot. So again, don’t worry about distinguishing the main plot from the subplot when using plot questions to structure your story. Just make sure that whatever plot subquestion arises, it is connected to the primary plot question and your story will feel cohesive and like it has a sense of progress. 

 

    To illustrate with an example, let’s go back to the hypothetical novel I’m planning with my protagonist Kiara. Provided you’ve done all the root work, the easiest part will be figuring out your first plot question because it will almost always be your protagonist’s plot goal. In our example, Kiara’s plot goal is to become the Bothorro’s Manor Valet. So the first plot question that the reader will form will be: Will Kiara manage to become the Bothorro’s Manor Valet?

 

    Now depending on what story I’m envisioning telling, I will structure its progression into plot questions and plot subquestions. We already know she’s promised the job if she delivers a package and we know that one big conflict in Kiara’s way is the treacherous forest. I will ask myself if the forest is just a part of the journey, most of it or all of it. Am I envisioning this as a buddy dramedy with Kiara and Lavan? A romance? A thrilling adventure? Etc. These are all questions that if you were the writer you’d likely have some sense of an answer, plus you would have done the character root work for all major characters and their goals. Given all this, my plotting via plot question might break down as follows:

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1. Will Kiara manage to become the Bothorro’s Manor Valet?

a. Will Kiara and Lavan safely transport the artifact through the forest?

i. Will they get the artifact back from the Bandit Queen?

b. Will Kiara manage to steal the artifact back from her father?

 

    Just looking at this series of questions, you probably have a sense of what events transpire in the plot even though this scaffolding isn’t listing the inciting incidents that propel the plot to these questions. You probably also get the feeling that this is an adventure. If I wanted to make this adventure more extensive and place more intrigue around the fire-giant artifact, it could be that the Bothorros want to keep it a secret because another faction is after it. In that case the plot question scaffolding could look something like this:

 

1. Will Kiara manage to become the Bothorro’s Manor Valet?

a. Will Kiara and Lavan safely transport the artifact through the forest?

i. Will they get the artifact back from the Bandit Queen?

ii. Will they escape the fire-giants on their tail?

b. Will Kiara free herself from the thieves’ guild who are holding her for ransom?

c. Will Kiara betray Lavan?

 

    A novel that follows the second scaffolding would be longer and more involved, but either way this little scaffolding is all I need to give my story a clear direction. The decision points outline will layer the thematic direction and development. But before we get to that, I’d like to address a frequently asked question.

 

What If For Some Reason Your Story Doesn’t Lend Itself to Having a Plot Question

 

    As noted above, plot questions are a strong reader engagement tool. They are ubiquitous in successful commercial fiction, but they are not the only engagement tool. Several literary novels don’t make use of this tool, preferring to push the reader’s curiosity buttons exclusively with why and how and who questions rather than having characters with clear goals. Or they rely very heavily on a likable tone to tide readers over. Your protagonist might be an unreliable narrator or be in a situation where they’re robbed of agency. There may be many good reasons for why you can’t or don’t want to use a plot question to structure your story. My two cents are that you don’t have to. Just whatever you do, do it knowingly and know what audience you’re aiming for. The reality is that stories with plots that can be followed via plot questions have a greater audience appeal, but if your goal isn’t to reach the widest audience, I will not be telling you that you need to change your goal.

 

    For a few examples of successful novels that don’t have plot questions, we’ve got:

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    Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. It’s an absolute classic and it relies heavily on the narrator’s voice for reader engagement, plus his high level of agency—he’s constantly getting himself into new trouble. Halfway through the novel you could make the argument that the plot question becomes Will Holden succeed in emotionally connecting with someone? but that’s not really spelled out, nor is it a question that is concrete enough to qualify as a plot question.

 

    Tinkers by Paul Harding won the 2010 Pulitzer, but it definitely doesn’t make use of plot questions. I will admit that while I ultimately liked the book, reading it was more a type 2 fun activity (not fun while reading it, but fun when reflecting on having done it). Gorgeous sentences, moving insights into human nature, but a slog. 

 

    Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi technically does make use of plot questions, but it’s also one of the best unreliable narrator novels I’ve ever read. Soon it becomes apparent that the plot question you thought you were following is completely irrelevant and it’s replaced by the real one. That’s a twisty use of the tool, but it works really well here. 

 

    So the bottom line is that plot questions will make your story more accessible to the reader. But they are just one reader engagement tool and as with all tools, use them if they suit your vision.

 

The Decision Points Outline

 

    The primary use value of the decision points outline is mapping out the thematic and character progression of your story. While this tool can be used separately from plot questions, the two work really well together especially in long-form narratives, like novels or novellas. 

 

What Decisions to Map

 

    The pulse of stories is the series of interconnected decisions characters make over time in response to the conflicts they face. We tell stories to showcase what decisions are worth making in life. So with that in mind, I start by mapping out the key decisions that illustrate each major character’s arc based on their thematic framework statement. 

 

    For example, we know Kiara has a positive change arc and her thematic statement is It is better to choose integrity over success even if it means losing social status. I know I’ll start her out with questionable integrity and will push her downhill from there until she is faced with a decision point where she draws the line and is willing to sacrifice success and social status to take an action that will actually fulfill her emotional goal. So I know I will want to have the following decision points (dramatized in scenes):

• She commits a small, but understandable indiscretion

• Tells a white lie

• Tells the truth, but it backfires on her

• Her indiscretion is harming someone else so that she can get what she wants

• Chooses integrity over success and pays the price, but feels good about it

 

    Because Lavan is also a major character in this story, let’s map him too as an example. He will be a flat arc character (that is, his belief about how to achieve his emotional goal is accurate). This is his character sketch:

Emotional goal: wants to feel accepted (starts out feeling lonely)

Belief about how he’ll achieve the emotional goal: finding people who accept him as he is without him having to modify himself. (He used to have that in his small adoptive family, but his adoptive father passed away a few years ago and his loneliness has been building since then.)

Plot goal: He has an amulet that purportedly was given to him as a baby by his fire-giant mother. He wants to ask the Bothorro’s if they can read the inscription or tell him anything about its origins so that he might be able to find his fire-giant family. 

Thematic choice statement: It is better to express your needs over pleasing others even if it means losing connection. 

 

    He grew up the only half fire-giant in the village and while he’s valued for his strength and abilities, he has had to bend a lot of himself to fit in. He views this as a matter of survival because he’s never known any other village and wouldn’t know where else to go if he’s chased away. He’s been hiding his fiery hair under a thick uncomfortable cap so he doesn’t make others uncomfortable and has been meticulously filing down his claws so they look like nails and don’t intimidate humans around him. For his emotional and thematic journey, he will slowly be letting Kiara see parts of him he is afraid to show in the village, partly out of necessity as they’re traveling together, and partly because their relationship develops. So for his decision points, I’m envisioning:

• He keeps his cap on while traveling at first

• He takes his cap off and lets his hair burn freely

• He stops filing his claws and lets them grow

• He reveals the amulet he has been given as a baby

• He refuses to hide his visible fire-giant traits even among many people

 

    Note that in the process of drafting I might stumble on additional ideas for consequential decisions that fit into Kiara’s and Lavan’s individual character arcs. And if that happens, great! I just add them to the decision points outline. But for the sake of our example, let’s stick with these five points each. 

 

    With the thematic choice points of my protagonist and major character mapped out, what I do next is see if I can get one or more of these choice points to happen in one scene, ideally by interacting and complicating one another. Maybe Kiara tells Lavan she finds his claws scary and he should hide them and it backfires on her because he gets upset at her and storms off, leaving her temporarily alone so that the bandits can ambush her and steal the artifact. The more I can make the characters’ thematic journeys intersect, the more tense and emotionally resonant the story will feel.

 

    One final note: if Lavan had his own point of view (POV), I would make sure that his plot goal is woven into the plot questions at the right point (which is when the reader becomes aware of his true plot goal so that they can ask the appropriate plot question). However, because I’m envisioning this as written exclusively from Kiara’s POV, I won’t be adding his plot question to the scaffolding. (His plot question would be Will Lavan learn where he can find his fire-giant family?)

 

Integrating Plot Questions with the Decision Points Outline

 

    Just like you want to intertwine the thematic journeys of your characters with one another, you also want to ensure the plot questions resonate with the emotional decision points your characters are making. The primary goal you should seek to accomplish here is to resolve every plot subquestion with a key character decision that exacts a price. As the decisions escalate in intensity, the plot should follow suit so that the resolution of every plot subquestion feels like it is higher stakes than the previous. This structure ideally builds until the entire plot question is resolved with the last plot subquestion under its umbrella. Here is what that might look like in our made up example story of Kiara and Lavan. 

 

1. Will Kiara manage to become the Bothorro’s Manor Valet?

a. Will Kiara and Lavan safely transport the artifact through the forest?

-Kiara reveals the secret of the delivery even though she’s not allowed to

-Lavan keeps his hat on to hide his fiery hair

-Kiara tells a white lie 

-Kiara tells the truth, but it backfires on her

i. Will they get the artifact back from the Bandit Queen?

-Lavan takes his hat off

-Lavan lets his claws grow

-Lavan reveals the amulet he was given as a baby and its significance to 

him

-Kiara’s indiscretion causes harm to another person, but she gets the artifact back (this decision point wraps up the forest plot subquestion and the Bandit Queen plot subquestion)

b. Will Kiara manage to get the artifact back from her father?

-Lavan refuses to hide his fire giant traits even among many people

-Kiara chooses integrity over success, but feels good about it (this decision point wraps up Kiara’s primary plot question. From this point on any scenes are wrapping up the theme question itself for each of the main characters as well as the non POV-character’s plot goals if they still need wrapping up). 

 

    As you can probably see, this scaffolding is still a tool for the writer’s use and doesn’t need to make sense to anyone else. I also want to emphasize this is just one example. Your scaffolding might look quite different even if we were hypothetically writing the same story. 

 

    What I don’t have on here are any plot developments that don’t result in a new plot question or subquestion. For example, I omit that Kiara will realize her father is a bandit or that it will be through his help that they’ll retrieve the artifact from the bandit queen. I don’t have any details about the fact that he’ll want to claim a reward for himself from the Bothorro’s and will try to gang up with Kiara against Lavan, but that Kiara will choose Lavan (i.e. her integrity) over her father (i.e. success) even though it will cost her the job prospect (i.e. social status). I find those big picture details already live in my head without much trouble and the plot questions and decision points outline serve to keep them organized. Your approach may be different and you might choose to write down additional plot details in this scaffolding. 

 

    In doing this integration of the two tools, you can also more easily see what portion of your story is likely to run shorter than others. Here the final plot subquestion seems the least developed in my head. So if I were writing this story I would know to spend some time on figuring out this portion. But the bottom line is that having the plot questions and the decision points outline gives me a very manageable oversight of the most crucial aspects of my story to iterate and execute. 

 

What About a Scene-by-Scene Outline?

 

    You will notice that this scaffolding technically only has 10 key/payoff scenes, plus five more to establish the plot questions and subquestions. But most “standard length” novels have around 60 to 100 scenes. So what about all the other scenes that will be needed? There are two ways I go about these:

1. Ensuring my circumstances illustrate the theme and the story-wide stakes are clear. Because this story will be about finding a place to belong, I would have a couple of establishing scenes that demonstrate why Kiara doesn’t feel she belongs in the village, and same with Lavan. What do they stand to lose if they don’t embark on their journey? Additionally, I know there will be several scenes when the bandits and Kiara’s father come into play that will also be an opportunity to illustrate the idea of belonging while complicating the dynamic Lavan and Kiara had. 

2. Ensuring any important tools, or abilities, or contexts that will be needed to resolve conflict are seeded early on. So if I know that there will be a dramatic chase scene where they’re trying to get away from bandits and Lavan will need to pick up a whole horse and its rider and throw it at approaching horses, I will need to establish earlier than that that he has this level of strength. Maybe at the beginning of their journey, he bests a grown wild boar with his bare hands like it’s no big deal.  

 

    If I worry I will lose some cool ideas as I work, I’ll sometimes jot down the scenes I’m envisioning next in brief bullets. But generally I am not the type of writer that will outline every single scene. This is in large part a personal preference and process, but in small part I find that most writers I’ve encountered figure out their setup scenes and connecting scenes via the act of writing itself. If that isn’t you and you’d like to pin down most of your scenes before you begin drafting, you can still use the plot questions and decision points scaffolding. Just add in all the establishing, stakes, and foreshadowing scenes where they go in relation to the plot questions and subquestions. And if you are writing in a specific genre, you can also add the key scenes of that genre into this scaffolding to ensure the genre beats intersect effectively with the thematic decision points as well as the plot beats. If you wish to create a full scene-by-scene outline, but aren’t sure whether some of your scenes are needed, I have a story momentum tool and scene functions tool that will help you.

 

    If you tend not to outline at all, I still encourage you to create something as simple as the above example. If you find yourself veering off from your scaffolding, it’ll be easier to change the scaffolding and see the knock on effects of your changes at a glance so you can effectively course-correct as you write. 

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    But at this point we’re beginning to get into the territory of actually putting words on the page which is beyond the scope of these two tools. I hope you now understand the structure and flexibility that plot questions and a decision points outline can bring to plotting your story. If you’re ready to jump in and write, you can check out the arsenal of engagement tool resources I’ve developed to keep your readers reading.