Where Do Your Plots Come From?

The short answer is The New York Times.

You’d be surprised at the sheer volume of newspaper articles that go into my plot folder. Just a sampling of today’s headlines: Husband Indicted in Double-Murder Case Involving Brazilian Au Pair; Scientists Drive Mice to Bond by Zapping Their Brains; If you need a Charge on the Road, Think Twice Before Plugging in; Hackles Rise Over Poet’s Use of Chinese Name; What Do You Do When Your Dog Sues You? And, finally, one I found in Obituaries: J.S.G. Boggs, 62, Artist Who Literally Made His Own Money and Spent It.

So how do I craft a plot out of the hodge-podge? Here’s a case study for my novel, A Reluctant Spy. It started out with a character forming in my mind, Madeline Geiger, an introverted misfit, someone a bit like myself, but, smarter, more courageous, more of a risk-taker, and taller.  My alter ego, bursting to break out—a brilliant computer scientist and a diabolically good hacker. In other words, larger than life. I imagined her being tongue-tied, socially inept. And I wanted her to be physically vulnerable, maybe in a wheelchair, someone who lived the life of the mind, and got into trouble. Caught red-handed, perhaps, hacking into someone’s laptop. With this socially awkward character, I conjured up a delectable fictional scenario in which everyone in her orbit would underestimate her.

So my novel would begin with my character Madeline, physically weakened, but mentally on top of her game. Stuff would go wrong, but of course she would grow and triumph in the end.

Enter my New York Times plot folder. I paged through the stories, all shocking and lurid in some way, because I like to write thrillers, page turners about the dark underbellies that threaten the world and my protagonist. First I had to find the through-line, the external quest for Madeline. I knew it when I saw it. Here was the headline. Sex Trafficking of Juveniles Online: Modern Slavery in Cyberspace. In it, I read how the dark web specializes in criminal’s online identity protection, enabled by sophisticated encryption. That was it! I’d make Madeline an expert in encryption, who would search for a computer scientist who was providing encryption software to enable an illegal pornography ring on the dark web. This was not by any means a plot, but it represented progress. Now I had to figure out something that would motivate Madeline to go searching for one such enabler. I continued browsing through the plot folder.

Here’s what I came upon. Attempted Murder by Parachute? British Soldier Convicted in Sabotage Case. The article told a story of a man who tried to murder his wife by tampering with her parachute before a skydive, as a prelude to life with another woman. But his plan went wrong: the wife survived, landing on soft, recently plowed earth. Yes! I’d start with a skydive, Madeline’s passion. I pictured Madeline and Mike, her husband, on their tenth wedding anniversary, starting afresh in their rocky marriage, trying to make things right by treating themselves to a skydive. And there would be catastrophic trouble with the parachutes, a terrifying plunge to earth, in which Mike would die, but Madeline would land on newly plowed farmland and survive. This would explain the wheelchair, her terrible injuries and physical vulnerability. This struck me as a great opening for a thriller, showing Madeline’s joy and cool head under fire as she flew above the earth. I could demonstrate that she was a risk taker, exhilarated by the danger. Then she would crash to the ground.

A brainwave was needed to bring me closer to a real plot, and I’m happy to say that The Muse paid me a visit. Here’s what I came up with for a logline: On the day of her husband’s funeral, Madeline is approached by an FBI agent and asked to go undercover in her university’s computer science department to find out who’s been providing encryption software to enable pornographers on the dark web. The motivation for Madeline would be as follows: The agent knew her deceased husband, and implied that if she took the job spying on her colleagues, she might find evidence about who sabotaged their parachutes.

So now I had my plot and could write an outline. The story would culminate in a burst of brilliance from Madeline, leading to a dramatic confrontation with the perpetrator. The end.

But there was something missing. The plot was interesting, but ordinary, somewhat run of the mill in the thriller industrial complex. If you read the websites of agents who represent thrillers they all say they’re looking for high-concept plots, which means a little extra magic that makes your plot stand out.

So back I went, yet again, to plunder my plot folder. I struck treasure. Creepy Lodger with No Boundaries. This described the exploits of a man who rents a room in a single woman’s house and slowly begins to menace the woman and frighten her. This could be the last piece of the Madeline puzzle. Early in the book, a stranger would arrive at her house and claim that Mike, the deceased husband, had arranged to rent the small apartment in her lonely farmhouse to him and his two pets, a dog and a cat. I imagined that Madeline and her mother would be in desperate need of money to pay the mortgage, and would reluctantly let the stranger in. Slowly, he would insinuate himself into the household and into the plot. Perhaps Madeline and her mother would fall in love with the pets—or even the man himself. Some questions ominously hovering over the entire novel would be: Who is this dodgy lodger? How is he connected to the spying plot? My readers would have to wait to find out. This man would add another dimension to the story—ongoing suspense—and some complexity too. Additionally, I could add yet another layer—ongoing aggravation—in the form of a sexist, misogynistic computer science department, thwarting Madeline in her career at every opportunity.

Using my three New York Times articles as inspiration, I had concocted a high-concept plot, and, like the true computer programmer that I am, I could write a detailed top-down outline with step-wise refinement, beginning to end.

The above shaggy-plot tale is the origin of my debut novel, A Reluctant Spy, which is being published by The Story Plant in January. The sequel with Madeline will follow, so back to the plot folder.

Stay tuned.