It Starts with a Plot

 Imagine we are outdoors. Maybe we’re in a backyard, in a park, deep inside the woods, or...well, you choose. Let’s say there’s evidence that this almost-level, coffin-sized plot of earth wasn’t there yesterday. What do we make of it?

The mind whirls. Who dug this? What did they bury? A cherished pet? An animal they killed, accidentally or on purpose? A human who’d asked to lie in peace there? A human, brutally murdered? A human, buried alive waiting to be freed by ransom payment? OR... Is it a treasure chest? Part of an innocent game? One of  ten thousand X-marks-the-spots? Was it caused by someone testing out some new tools? Is it filled with incriminating evidence? Is it nothing?

“Interesting,” you may say, “but how do you decide exactly which of these are buried there, and who did the burying?” And that, my friends, is the beginning of plot. 

Award-winning author Jody Feldman often starts her plots with such scenarios. Her YA thriller, No Way Home began with exactly that type of brainstorming. The same goes for her thriller-in-progress.