Getting it in

There are three basic ways to get multiple plot points and payoffs into a story: you can do it on purpose in the first draft, you can do it by accident in the first draft, or you can do it in the rewrite.

Putting in plot points and payoffs on purpose in the first draft requires that the writer know something about what plot points will be needed and what payoffs are possible. This does not mean laying out the whole plot in detail from the start. I do this maybe half the time, and here’s how it works for me:

I write a plot outline that I know is wrong in detail, and that I know I will not follow. After years of thinking that I just want something for my backbrain to rebel against, I have realized that this serves another purpose as well. It gets me thinking about a) what the various characters’ plans and intentions are, b) how the characters relate to each other, and c) how the various plans and intentions and relationships may interfere or amplify each other. I also usually get general ideas for a couple of scenes that could happen; sometimes these make it into the story, sometimes not.

This gives me a bunch of material to start sticking into the story – planting things for later payoffs. I’m not talking about specifics, like “Jenny and George are going to have a ten-minute argument about the gold-plated letter opener in the study, during which they will break Claudia’s Tiffany lamp; this means I have to establish the letter opener, study, Tiffany lamp, and of course the fascination that Jenny and George have with the opener and their rivalry and access to the study.” I may have an idea that Jenny and George don’t get along, and that leads to the idea that I want them to have an argument about something in mid-book somewhere. I don’t want the argument to blow up out of nowhere (for the reader), and I want the tension to escalate until the blowup.

So from the start of Chapter One, every time these two characters interact, I have in mind that they don’t much like each other, and I’m subconsciously looking for opportunities to demonstrate that – and not just in conversation (though some mild sniping might be a good place to start). It could be something subtle:  Jenny forgets her cell phone and George notices but doesn’t remind her. It could be more blatant: George notices and hangs back so he can take a look at the phone and maybe try to break into it.

I may never actually get to a full-fledged argument between Jenny and George. Or the argument may happen in public at the beach instead of in the study. Or one of them may quietly poison the other. It’s all part of letting yourself have a better idea and letting things develop. What I needed to know at the start was that Jenny and George dislike each other and that I wanted that to be an important (or at least medium-important) part of the story, so that I could consciously (and subconsciously) watch for places to demonstrate their growing dislike as a bit of background in, say, the scene where Jenny, George, Ivan, and Debbie are assigned to the forgery case (which is the main plotline).

It’s really a matter of having my mind subliminally aware of various plot ideas, plans, and relationships so that if there’s an opportunity to get them in while I’m writing a scene, I can jump on it. This also applies to things like the character who is allergic to magic and the way Ivan’s stake out at the hot new restaurant (looking for the forgers) is going to make his ex-wife think he’s stalking her when she spots him watching her favorite date spot. It starts with establishing the existence of things I know I’ll need later, branches out into things I could need later, and then just develops the things I’ve mentioned as the story goes along.

Doing plot points and payoffs by accident in the first draft also requires attention and intuition, but it’s more a matter of remembering or reminding yourself of little things you’ve already written. I do this maybe forty percent of the time. For me, it involves re-reading my notes and my draft-to-date a lot. I don’t have a fixed schedule – sometimes it’s when I finish a scene, sometimes it’s every couple of chapters, sometimes it’s just when I have a vague feeling that I already said something that I could use here, sometimes it’s when Jenny and George start their argument in the study and I don’t remember what I said the study looked like, so I go back and check, and hey, there’s a gold-plated letter opener that I can use!

This works pretty well for me because I am a rolling reviser – I tend to go back and fiddle with earlier stuff for a few hours or days when I’m stuck. If you are prone to getting trapped in Endless Rewrite Syndrome, you will need to make some pretty strict rules for yourself and stick to them to make this work. (In extreme cases, you may have to refuse to allow yourself to fix anything, even an obviously misplaced comma, until the second draft.) Some writers prefer to make detailed notes as they write about stuff they have mentioned (things Jenny has in her purse, things that were mentioned in the description of the kitchen/study/beach) and review those instead of going through the whole manuscript again. Others get so deeply into their manuscript/world that they just remember everything (at least long enough to finish the draft).

Putting things in during the rewrite is something I do maybe ten to twenty percent of the time, and it’s a lot like my system for “by accident” stuff. I read and reread (and have beta readers and my crit group read) the story looking for stuff that isn’t clear because there isn’t enough background or setup, and then I look through all the chapters before that to see where I can add a line or two that will fit what’s already there while setting up the thing that’s inadequately set up. Again, it’s not a matter of having Debbie say “I’m allergic to fish, you know” somewhere out-of-the-blue in Chapter One or Two; it’s more like looking for places where my foursome is eating out and Debbie can say “Good pick – no fish” and in some other pre-existing eating-out scene Ivan can say “Will this place be all right?” and Debbie can say “They don’t put fish on pizza, and I’m not allergic to anything else” or someone can offer to get pizza with anchovies just to wind her up.