can also be a convenient way to at least get a plot started, even
if you plan to change it later on.o And sometimes writers borrow a plot when they need to
provide a structure for the material that truly interests them.
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novel, 1HXURPDQFHU, as an old-fashioned noir thriller in the
style of Dashiell Hammett or Raymond Chandler. He was
interested in evoking a rich, complex, and colorful future and
in playing with the cultural, social, and political implications of
the computer revolution; thus, he used a thriller plot to provide
a framework for this material.z Another approach to plotting is to start with the end of a story and
structure the rest of the work so that it leads to a particular climax.
Obviously, this method requires that you know how the story ends
before you start writing. It also probably works best if you’re writing a
binary narrative, that is, one with an either/or conclusion.
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backward should be relatively easy: If there’s a crime to be
solved, you start with the crime or its immediate aftermath; if
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meeting or the situation that leads to their meeting.
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outline is useful. If you already know what happens at the end,
that means you know, or at least can infer, what the plot needs
to do to reach that point: what characters you’ll need, what the
setting will be, and roughly what steps the characters need to
take to get there.z Finally, many writers start with an image, a character, or a situation
and, as Gardner put it, “grope” their way forward. William Faulkner
famously said that he created his great novel 7KH6RXQGDQGWKH)XU\
by starting with a single image of a little girl with muddy underpants
sitting in a tree, peering through a window at a funeral. This method