Video Lesson 4 PLOT
“Story is about the thrills, and twists and turns, but more than anything else it’s about revealing character.” ~James Patterson
What I learned from Jim Patterson in lesson four.
- Characters are revealed by their action
- Try to write every chapter, as it was your first chapter in a book.
- Set out to write a number one story thriller, with a number one story idea.
- Don’t write a single chapter that doesn’t ‘t propel the story forward
- Leave out all the parts readers are going to skim.
- Tell my story, map out my story, in ten or fifteen minutes
James Patterson mentions E.M Forster and his famous description of a plot.
The king died and the queen died is a story
The king died and the queen died of grief, is a plot
What does this mean? What I see… When that Queen died from grief you can add the love story, the reason for her death. The cause of her death, from there you have the beginnings of a story. From there you add in the ‘why’ that Queen loved the King so much she died when he did. You will wonder how the King died. You get it?
James Patterson said to, “Find the conflict in your characters.”
He also used The Great Gatsby’s plot: Gatsby has everything anyone could dream of except love. Gatsby gets love. Gatsby loses love and loses everything. And that’s Gatsby.
The rest are all those questions, problems, and the reasons why Gatsby did what he did.
Listen carefully to lesson 4 video, do the assignment. Have a question ask it. Have a comment post it. Watch that video as many times as you need to.
See you in class.
The writer finished James Patterson’s Masterclass.
The writer finished James Patterson’s Masterclass then wrote a mystery.