If you’re following along, I’ve outlined how to go from a basic idea for a story to a full skeleton outline. That’s a lot of work and, in some short stories, that might be all you need to get your project underway. However, often times in novels you will need more to flesh out your pieces and that normally falls to side plots. So how do you choose side plots? The first thing to consider is your characters.

            The main plot is your main character interacting with the antagonist and the objective they are trying to solve. In many stories, your character can’t do it by themselves and needs help from others. While making your skeleton for the main plot, you most likely realized that there were characters, or needed to be characters, at certain points in the story. Maybe it’s a best friend, maybe it’s a mentor, or maybe it’s the guys being paid to help with the scheme. Though they touch into the main part of the story, they probably wouldn’t have enough room to be introduced and grow without a few side happenings. How do we know what scenes we need to add to keep the plot moving believably?

            First, we need to meet the characters. By this point you should already have some idea who your primary characters are. Even if you don’t have names, you should at least have some place holders like: male hero, evil wizard, protagonist’s mom, friend who wants out of the friendzone, etc. Just like in the real world, these are all different people who will have different ideas, beliefs, goals, and motivations. Knowing what all of these are will be the key to crafting a realistic set of side plots to help get everyone to the final goal.

            For this exercise, you’re going to want to stick to the main characters who are going to impact the main plot line. These I’ll refer to as Primary characters. Later, you’ll need to think through Secondary characters, those who only affect a side quest in a significant way, and Background characters, those who are there but could really be swapped out for anyone without change. But for now, we’re concerned with the big guns and not Drunk Guy Randy who lives at the local tavern because Martha left him for shoving 15 peanuts up his nose whenever he gets drunk. Unless Randy knows where the magic amulet of liver health rests. Then you can worry about him now.

            Take out a note book or a piece of paper or a Microsoft word sheet. Got it? Good. Because now it’s time to figure out who is going to be in this story and write… you guessed it: a sentence to let us know who we’re dealing with. Don’t worry, this will be expanded upon later.

Sentence should contain

            First, we need to decide your PM’s name because that’s important. No more place holders for you! Behind the name is a great tool and doesn’t carry the stigma of a sixteen-year-old girl walking into the bookstore to buy a baby name book. I swear, I’m just working on a book! Remember, unless your society is weird, parents choose names for their babies. The rich, white, Europeans are not going to name their child after an anime character and the nerdy anime cosplayers who live on minimum wage are not going to name their kid Sir Reginald III. So, make sure your name matches what their parents would have chosen, as well as your character.

            Next, we need to come up with each PM’s defining trait. How would people who know them describe them? Idealist? Jokester? Happy? Sad? Shouty? This is a snap shot of how the world perceives them that will dictate how they tend to act. If a character is going to tell jokes and play pranks, they’re a jokester or trickster. If they are a sunny ball of happiness, they are an optimist. If they think things should be done a certain way to lead to the best outcome, they are an idealist. You will want to choose something that will be easy to show at all times, unless something major happens to pull them out of their typical mood. I won’t list any dos or don’ts here because it completely depends on your own style and talent to decide what is and isn’t reasonable for you.

            Now that we know what the PM acts like, what drives them? Why do they do what they do? Is your character a dad fighting to make the world a better place for his children? Is your character like my MC: a dreamer who has a vision of a better future and wants to act on it? For your main character, this is what will get them to accept the main quest. For your villain, it will be why they are evil, even if it’s just because they want to be evil. For PMs who aren’t the MC or the villain, why do they help or hinder the hero? What do they hope to gain or are afraid to lose?

            Different from their drive, what is your PM’s main goal? This is what they are heading towards. The villain is evil because of his drive. His goal is what he hopes to achieve with his evil. The children are their father’s drive, but his goal is to topple the evil regime and make the world better.

            What is the character’s role in the story? Are they the main character? Main villain? The love interest? The Mentor? A minor villain? Why do they deserve to be in this story at all and what makes them count as a PM?

            And those are our pieces! With this, you should be ready to craft a killer one to two sentence character description that will help you know how to move forward with your story. Next Monday, I’ll talk about fleshing out those sentences and Wednesday I’ll cover creating the side plots. In the meantime, I’ll see you Friday with another bestiary entry and leave you with an example sentence. Thank you for reading and liking! Feel free to comment with any questions or other methods that you have found that work for you on each subject.

James Mooney, a hardworking immigrant with a dark sense of humor, wants to lift his family out of poverty and away from the scaffolding that his brother died working on by making quick money with good moonshine and teaching others how to do the same.