Hello everyone, I’m excited to return to this with a shiny new star next to the title. Man, it’s been more than half a year – three quarters of a year almost – since I last wrote a rant. Blah, blah, excuse about why I never post anymore. Ranting is hard. I can't always be fueled by disappointment and motivated to help people. I am entirely writing this post because this potato story was featured and I want to thank all my readers, new and old, for getting me here. I was waiting for this day to come, and here we are. So the purpose of this post is to thank everyone, but I have also provided a rant as a courtesy. 

In a previous chapter I discussed how romance is only a plot device that moves a story forward and it should not be the bulk of the actual story. That does make you wonder what is a plot device and how can you use them.

A plot device is basically the driving force of your story. It is a means to get to the end. This is the ring that rules all other rings which a band of heroes have to quest to destroy. This is the horcrux that needs to be stolen and destroyed. This is the … I’m trying to think of another fantasy item that needs to be destroyed but my mind is blank now. In other words, it is what drives the protagonist the action. With these romance stories, this drive to action is often just a desire to win over or protect their love, and I think it’s a cheap technique.

A plot can have multiple goals that need to be reached, and multiple plot devices can be used to reach that goal. This questing example is just one of those plot devices.

When establishing a plot, you need to know from the beginning what your central conflict is and how the protagonists and his or her allies are related to it. If you’re writing anything longer than a drabble or a slice-of-life type story, then you absolutely need to establish a conflict before you start writing. I know it can be difficult to pre-plan all the details of a story beforehand, but even having a general idea can help.

Let’s use my fic from 2010, This is Utopia. My inspiration for the story always centered on one major conflict, a civilization that was isolated in domed cities under the rule of some weird authority, and a civilization outside the domes that wanted to overthrow them. When I started the story, I only really knew three characters I was including, but as I continued writing and introducing new characters and plotlines, I never forgot the overarching conflict that the characters had to work towards.

As an author, this goal or main driving force helps keep your story on track. Your writing can sometimes break free once fueled by a powerful idea and the story might get a little lost, but having that core plot can help you reign in your story. For a reader, having a sense of the story’s goal helps with comprehending any actions that might not seem completely logical in a different setting.

From the intense googling I did, there are a lot of plot devices writers can use to help their story progress without suddenly introducing new plot points in a Deus Ex Machina style. Deus Ex Machina is a plot device that people use when they can’t think of a proper way to solve a problem. Characters will be stuck in a situation and someone new or something new is introduced that cleanly solves the problem for now so the characters can move on. It is generally considered poor writing to do something like this. It takes away from the illusion of the story and can leave the reader feeling a loss of realism.

To counter Deus Ex Machina problems, always try thinking ahead where your story is going, or at least where the immediate conflict is going, and establish characters and objects that can help later on. This is called Foreshadowing. With this, you hint that a conflict either will be resolved or created because of certain people or objects. Foreshadowing is usually best when it is subtle and the readers don’t notice it so they don’t come to expect whatever the foreshadowing leads to. Either way, whatever it leads to won’t feel completely random.

In order to hide the foreshadowing, you can another plot device called a Red Herring. This is the sort of thing often used in mystery stories so it isn’t obvious who committed the crime. You as the author put more emphasis on that could be important either through descriptions and narration or through assumptions and actions a character makes. Red Herrings have to be about as believable as the correct answer in order to maintain a level of suspense and belief.

In contrast to a Red Herring, there is Chekov’s Gun, where something is laid out for the reader and the reader blatantly knows it is somehow going to come up later. In the original scenario, a play is being performed and in Act I a character places a gun on the table and the whole audience sees, then in Act III the gun is used to kill someone. If you establish the role of a person or an object early on, you can then freely and creatively move the story along to use the plot device. This is similar to foreshadowing, but I think it serves a different purpose in a story.

The plot devices that people would feel the most comfortable writing are Side Plot and Frame Story. When there are two concurrent stories being told, such as what the protagonist is doing and what their love interest is doing, this is when you have side plot. The actions on one side of the story can affect the actions on the other side. This is also the fight between the hero and the villain, law enforcement and the criminal, the protagonist and their foil. The stories don’t have to intersect, but there should be something that ties them together so the reader fully cares about both sides.

When you frame a story, you tell multiple smaller stories that frame an overall larger story. You might be more familiar with this from serialized television. Think of a cop show where every episode focuses on one case but the whole show is about finding one specific suspect. Or think of a show where the protagonist and their allies have to travel to a location and they stop in various places along before they get to their main goal.

Both of these techniques require some sort of central conflict that is being worked towards. Without the driving force, you lack a story. When we finish stories and feel satisfied, it is usually because something has been resolved. The resolution doesn’t always have to be a good one, but there has to be one. Plot devices help us set up conflicts and solve them in a satisfactory way for the reader.

How do I often see people failing to establish a conflict? Or how do people create lackluster conflicts? I think you can understand where I am going with my romance point of view. Romance can be very complicated, but when you break it down, it is really just about creating then maintaining a relationship with someone. Romance can be replaced with any kind of love, such as familial love, friendship love, and human love.

The motivation used in romance often centers around feelings. When a story is driven by someone’s feelings, the character’s actions can appear fickle or shallow or illogical. It can be difficult to properly convey the depth of those motivations to the readers, and even if those feelings are properly explained, the reader still might not agree with where those feelings lead the character.

I personally think that in general having the emotions of the characters pivot the plot in significant ways is frustrating. Of course in real life people are motivated by their feelings all the time, however, when those emotions drive everything in a story, the story starts feeling forced like with Deus Ex Machina.

Not every story needs to have some sort of complicated conflict or goal to reach, but if you are trying to write a longer story and perhaps have trouble containing it or even furthering it, I suggest doing more research on plot devices that can help you write in more creative ways. There are many more that I didn't mention because I'm too lazy.