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I have recently been going through Brandon Sanderson’s plotting lectures. They have been much more help than any other plotting videos I have watched, and introduced a great way of thinking to me, which I never would have come up with myself. I would recommend watching them on YouTube. ?
Anyway.
I have found a pattern in books I dislike – which is inverted in the books I enjoy. More often than not, a book doesn’t feel right because it hasn’t covered one of three things: Promise, Progress, and Payoff. I have become more and more certain that these are essential to writing an air-tight, quality plot.
Promise is when a book inserts an idea in your mind that you just can’t let go. It is the reward. The object the entire book is striving towards. Sometimes it can be multiple objects, and it can be something as big or small as you want. It may only be a subconscious thing, but the author intended it to be there all the same – and those are usually the coolest promises.
Keep in mind, this isn’t necessarily the hero’s goal we’re talking about – although that is one type of promise. With accurate forshadowing, and the reader’s heart, you can promise all sorts of things.
For example: In Way of Kings (a Sanderson book), the hero Kaladin is stuck in a small, insignificant crew of slaves. Over time, we come to truly appreciate this tiny team, even though absolutely none of the other characters do. We feel the injustice. And this create a subconscious promise in our heads – that someone will sooner or later recognize Kaladin’s team for what they’re doing.
If you don’t give clear, lovable promises, the reader won’t know what to focus on.
Progress. Sanderson says this is the most important part of plotting. You always want the reader to be turning pages, watching the plot move forward steadily towards the promise. It’s similar to counting down a blast off. Ten, nine, eight… They need to be able to visualize how much closer they are to the promise, in comparison to when they first started.
I’ve read books where nothing made coherent sense. The characters would do one thing, then another, then loop around and do something else – and I have no idea why any of these things are important to fulfilling the promise. Now, maybe they were important. But I don’t care enough anymore, because I wasn’t seeing any sensible movement in the story.
However, sometimes things are much clearer. In Wolf Wilder, we are promised a couple things. Firstly, that Feo would cross the snowy wilderness successfully to save her mother. But also that Ilya, the soldier boy, would come to recognize his own strengths. With the first promise, we can feel Feo and the wolves traveling closer and closer to their destination. And with the second, Ilya may have some issues at first – but his bravery, although not seen by us often, is shown in bits and pieces, like a sputtering car engine warming up.
Payoff. This is, simply put, where you make due on your promises. There are a few different ways you can take this where you want it, though.
First, you can give the reader exactly what they want.
Second, you can give them what they want, and a bonus on top of it.
And third, you can give them something different. This is where you have to make a bigger effort, because otherwise the reader will be miffed. You have to convince them over the course of the story that this other payoff is better, even though the signs are pointing towards the original promise. The reader needs to want this new payoff. Only then can you take that twist.
Anyway.
That’s the threefold plotting technique. I have no idea if there’s an article on here with this information, and if so, I am sorry – but I thought this might be encouraging. Please keep in mind, those videos I mentioned are much more thorough and interesting.
Does anyone else have thoughts and tips on this? I would love to read them.
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Hi Whale! This is an excellent summary, and I second your recommendation for Sanderson’s videos, I’ve seen all of them, and they’re extremely helpful.
I think the part I personally struggle with the most is progress. How do you make sure the ideas your exploring are actually relevant and of interest? I think a good system is to simply keep the constant goal in mind. Maybe place yourself into the protagonist’s shoes to see what they want and are trying to achieve, and work towards that with them if that makes sense for how your writing it.
I personally don’t think I could really add anything though. You summarized things beautifully. I think some books can survive without one of these, but it has to be done intentionally, and not overdone. Things like bathos are great if done carefully and intentionally, and not overdone, otherwise the readers will come to expect it, and your serious story has become a comedy. I think one good question to ask is what are you training your readers to expect? This has to do with all three steps you described.
It’s good to set mini plots within the plot that train your reader to know what is coming in the ultimate payoff. If you kill enough characters in mini payoffs, that sets a new expectation for the readers (depending on how well you wrote the death of course), that death is real, and therefore the stakes are real, and it could happen to the main characters. One way an author might subvert the payoff is with a joke, but too many jokes, causes the readers to not take the story seriously, and they will not take a serious payoff as serious when it comes. I’m not advocating to kill your characters to set expectations by the way, there are better ways to set stakes, but that is a straightforward example.
Sanderson also explains in his lectures the ideas of character, setting, and plot all being held together by the idea of conflict. When you make a promise, there needs to be an element actively resisting the payoff, because that’s what makes both the progress and payoff more meaningful. Perhaps giving the conflict some progress as well, making the progress you want to, well, progress, fail and step back a bit, which sets more stakes, expectations, and promises, where you can then explore more ideas and payoffs. The point he also makes here is that you want the different aspects to be connected by something, the character arch is just another plot, as well as the state of the world is another plot, then there is the plot of the story itself, they all need to latch to some singular resistance, even if the goals of the different promises are different. This doesn’t mean just one villain or anything, the conflict could be far more broad, and could be taking different forms for the different plots your dealing with.
I guess I did have a few things I could add…? Sorry, but I hope that made sense, that’s some of my unfiltered thoughts on the subject. Thanks for your comments! They lay out a whole lot of things I think a lot of writers miss.
He is perfect in Justice, yet He is perfect in Mercy, even when we fail Him. For this, He is good.
Ooh, awesome!! Maybe I’ll check them out sometime! Do you know if there’s like, a transcription of them?
That was amazing! I love the way you summarized them, it was really helpful! I’ll definitely come back to this as I’m plotting. ?
I think the part I personally struggle with the most is progress. How do you make sure the ideas your exploring are actually relevant and of interest? I think a good system is to simply keep the constant goal in mind. Maybe place yourself into the protagonist’s shoes to see what they want and are trying to achieve, and work towards that with them if that makes sense for how your writing it.
Yeah, I think so, too. That makes sense, though!
Thanks for ya’ll’s thoughts, that was cool to read!
"Don't shine so that others can see you. Shine so that through you, others can see Him." ~ C.S.L.
Hmm, interesting. I’ve never heard of this way of putting it, but I believe I’ve heard it called Desire and Need. That each character has to have a soul deep desire for something, be it a better life, a second chance, ect. and a need that would resolve this desire, even if it isn’t what the character wants. I like the 3(p) way of putting it though. It’s smoother, clearer to get across.
As for plotting, it needs to happen. Sometime. In the future. I know pretty much the storyline for all of series KotD (or RotH, I’m not certain yet), but haven’t plotted it out on paper. Does it need on paper? Probably.
Will it happen?
Probably…XD
A cup of tea is cheaper than therapy.
This is really helpful, thanks! I’ve heard a lot about how helpful Brandon Sanderson’s writing tips are, so I will definitely check them out sometime.
I am the worst at plotting my stories so I don’t really have anything to add to this, though.
⭐️World's Slowest Writer⭐️
I literally agree with everything you said. Thanks for the extended thoughts! It’s nice to have another Sanderson fan on here.
Thank you! I only know of the videos on YouTube, but you might find something on his website. (You can probably just search his name and it’ll come up somewhere.)
Ah, the woes of having to plot.
It’s hard.
XD
And yeah, it’s kind of like character development, except the character’s arc can be one of the promises. It’s like the Promise/Progress/Payoff thing is an umbrella, that covers every vein of writing, and shows you the process to make those things satisfying.
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