What

The short version: what happens and what ideas/topics you write about.

The long version: coming right up.

What to Write About

Usually people get an idea and then decide they're going to write about it. However, for some, it might be the other way around: they want to write but don't know what to write about. This is called writer's block (also blank page syndrome). It's more commonly used to refer to the lack of ideas or inspiration for an ongoing project, but it can technically still apply for someone who's hasn't even started writing yet.

The Wrong Way to Do It

• Copy someone else's work word-for-word.
• Paraphrase someone else's work.
• Basically take whatever book, movie, drama, etc. that you just read/watched, make minor alterations, change the names to the idols' names, and add in your own OCs (if any) without making any other changes.
• Find an existing stereotype and write a story that's pretty much the same old stuff.

The Right Way to Do It

• Ask yourself "what if."
• Think about the things that interest you and try to make an interesting situation that involves those things.
• Draw on your own life experiences, or those of people you know.
• Take an existing idea and make it your own.
• Take an existing stereotype, trope, or cliche and build on and tweak it to transform it into something creative and original to the point that the original stereotype cannot adequately summarize your entire fic. I once wrote a fic where my character got pregnant before she was married (though not as a teenager); however "he got her pregnant, they went through some drama, and then they were happy" is not an accurate summary of my fic.
• Think about an opinion or issue that really gets you worked up and then figure out a story that would address this issue and communicate the message you're trying to get out there.
• Eavesdrop on people's conversations. It's interesting the things you will hear that can be used for writing material.
• Think of a place you really love and base a story off of that setting.
• Turn back time (alternate history, steampunk, etc.).
• Go forward in time (sci-fi, dystopia, etc.).
• Dig through the interviews that your idols gave. Usually those will contain their answers to certain open-ended questions about what they'd do in a certain situation. You can turn that into a story.

This list is not close to being an all-inclusive or exhaustive list of ways to figure out what to write about, but it's a starting point.

After You Have Your Idea

So say you have an idea and topic in mind, and you're excited about it, but you don't really know what to write from there. What now?

The problem here is that a single idea or topic isn't going to carry the entire fic from start to finish. It's the focus of the fic but it isn't a driving force. "Elephants" is a topic, and, as you can clearly see, nothing happens. Turn the idea or topic into a problem, conflict, quest, and/or question (basically some sort of open-ended situation). That will be the purpose of your plot. The solution, victory (or defeat or truce), fulfillment, and/or answer (closure) will be the goal. 

Then, you will have to fill in the blank space that stretches between them. Reference Freytag's pyramid in the next section. The should give you an extra element to stick between your start and end. How do you get your characters from Point A to Point B? If the main characters are hunting a dragon, they probably won't just go straight up the mountain, into the cave, and then slit its throat while it's sleeping. There will things along the way that will challenge or help the quest. If the character is trying to figure out the answer to some question, then he probably needs to get some wrong answers before he finds the one he's looking for. And so on.

Some people will just start writing without any sort of plan or ending in mind. There's nothing horribly wrong with that, but I don't recommend posting it as you're writing because you will probably end up boring or frustrating your readers with your fic's lack of direction.

Some people can actually successfully churn out something decent and coherent simply by writing what comes to mind, essentially winging it. Most people can't. Instead, we start with a point, draw another point, and try to connect the dots, usually adding more dots in between or erasing or rearranging those dots until we get something that resembles a picture. For more about planning, see Chapter 17.

Plot Structure

Freytag's Pyramid

Some of you may have encountered this in English class before, perhaps not by this name, but the general idea of it was probably the same. Although this was intended by Freytag to be used for analyses of plays and dramatic works, it still applies to pretty much any narrative. Note: As with other things I've discussed, this is not a set of rigid rules but rather a general guideline.

• Exposition: This is the beginning of your fic. You introduce the background information and main characters and set up the primary conflict or issue of the story.
• Rising action: This is the part that follows the cliche phrase "the plot thickens." In other words, more things are happening that complicate the plot and the lives of the characters. Obstacles and antagonists pop up, and side issues and conflicts arise.
• : This is the high point of the story, the place where all of the action happens if there's a physical conflict. It's a turning point where things change for better or for worse. In stories where kicking isn't the focus, it's the point when the protagonist makes a crucial decision or takes some action or realizes something very important (epiphany).
• Falling action: Things slow down a little and the winner in the conflict is decided, whether it's good vs. evil or lust vs. other considerations, etc.
• Denouement: This is the ending portion of the story, where conflicts are resolved and everything goes to normal or becomes a certain way for good. Not all issues and conflicts are necessarily addressed and resolved, but the most important ones should be. Of course, there are instances where authors leave an open ending, whether because they are trolls or because they really want the readers to think or they want to let the readers imagine for themselves what could happen after that point. That's also a valid way of doing it, though it tends to be unpopular since many (probably most) readers want closure.

Some stories have more than one and go through two or more cycles of this general structure (well, minus the denouement part, or at least the finality aspect of the denouement).

The Relationship Between Characters and Plot

When it comes to stories, we like to dissect them into components to think about and analyze and develop. Two of the major divisions are characters and plot. From the most basic standpoint, characters are the people involved, and plot is the events that happen. However, the two aren't just mutually exclusive categories but are in fact intimately related.

In particular, with longer stories, the interdependence of plot and characters becomes more apparent. The events shouldn't just be happening just because; they should be happening for some reason. From a story-centered point of view, there's an explanation for an event, but beyond that, there's also an explanation from an author-centered point of view. Confused? Read on.

For example, say you decide to write about a girl who gets turned into a frog for a day or two or five by some witch's spell. From a story-centered point of view, this transformation happened because of something like a) she happened to stumble upon a magical hairclip that activated the spell, b) she met the witch and offended the witch, so the witch decided to punish her, c) the witch was just bored/evil/jealous of the girl's beauty/doing what the evil sorcerer told her to do. And so on.

Now, when you take a step back and put on your author thinking cap and view it from that perspective, you should be considering why this event is happening with the intent of answering the question "why are you writing this event?" Specifically, how does the event affect the character in an immediate and superficial sense? Now she looks like a frog and she can't go to school/the ball/whatever. That's nice. Now how about the long-term and deeper effects? This what you really want to spend some time reflecting on. Let's say she was a spoiled girl before. Maybe this transformation will teach her not to take everything for granted. Maybe this will instill a greater appreciation of animals in her. You get the picture. Figure that out. It will give your story more meaningful value and not just entertainment value. (For more on this topic, see Chapter 28.)

As I mentioned before, characters can be classified as static or dynamic characters. In general, your protagonist will probably be a dynamic character because what's the point of throwing all of these complications at the person if he/she's not going to get something out of it? With a oneshot, it's okay if your character is still the same person at the end, but with a longer story, it becomes hard to justify, especially when the characters are adolescents, people in their teens and twenties. This is the time of their lives when they're growing, changing, learning, etc. Even if they don't get forced into saving a kingdom somewhere in there, they'll still walk out of their experiences with something added or rearranged. (Or maybe they really are that incorrigible, and they'll end up as adults with the attitudes and mindsets of children/teens. That's pretty sad to imagine.)

This relationship between plot and characters isn't just a one-sided relationship, though. It goes the other way. Just as the plot can affect the characters, the characters can also affect the plot. The events of a story shouldn't just be events randomly jumping out of bushes going "HEY YOU THERE CHARACTER I'M GONNA GET YOU." To a certain extent, the characters' own actions and reactions should be pushing the plot forward.

Say you have a Cinderella-like character, and her story plays out like this:

1. Her mother dies of some sickness.

Plot affecting character, yes?

2. Her stepmother enters the pictures and starts mistreating her.

This is technically character affecting character, but in a sense the other characters' actions are like plot devices, so from a protagonist-centered perspective, it's pretty much the same as plot affecting character since the main character isn't the one acting here.

3. She gets tired of the BS and runs away.

Oh hey, look, it's an instance of the character affecting the plot! If she hadn't made that decision, she would still be stuck with her nasty stepmother waiting for prince charming or her fairy godmother to come save the day (don't count on it, girl). In a way, you could say that alternative is also the character affecting the plot. Sometimes inaction has important consequences the way action does.

Basically, as you progress further in your story, establishing the cause-effect relationships of the events and how the characters' motivations, actions, reactions, inaction, etc. tie into them becomes more important if you want to have a coherent plotline and not just a random smattering of isolated events thrown together in a tossed story salad.

Moreover, by considering plot with the characters in mind, it usually becomes easier to think of ideas for what to write. It's no longer about what can happen but rather what should happen that would have this particular effect on this particular character. If you start out thinking about what the character's goal is, you can come up with obstacles to that goal. If you want the character to learn some lesson, you can set up conflicts that will teach that lesson.