Twists and Opportunities

 by Charlotte Bennardo

My friend and neighbor gave me this magnet a few years back:

That happens in life. We plan our lives so carefully. Generally, we go through high school, think of what we want 'to be when we grow up' and head off to college, trade school, or a job. We think about getting out on our own, meeting a special someone, and coasting through the rest of our lives. 

We all know life doesn't always follow the path we set. Sickness, death, ruined finances, scandal, injustice- no one escapes life without scars and trauma and setbacks. 

So why should your characters have such smooth sailing? That's what makes a novel great; a plot with characters who face life's challenges because they have to (really, we wrote it that way). Sometimes there is no happy ending, just a 'doing the best I can' ending. Compromises have to be accepted, dreams let go, people walked away from, sacrifices made. 

Authors get caught in plot twists, too. Numerous time I started writing a novel with a clear idea of how the plot develops and then the characters/muse say, "Not happening, C." Either character or muse or both refuse to cooperate, and they take me off on a different trajectory. Now my outline is mostly trashed. If I'm lucky, I can keep a few scenes and weave them into the original plot. This is not a condemnation of plotting your novel by outlining. This is me saying that outlines and plots have to be flexible, sometimes even fluid, because there are times you need a completely different plot twist to be true to the characters, your writing, and the story itself. Like I posted on social media yesterday:

Instead of calling it a plot twist which some infer that everything is tangled or illogical, one might call it a "plot opportunity", the chance to go off in another direction and see what's down that way.

No matter what you call it, a twist or an opportunity, plot matters to character and author. 

Charlotte writes MG, YA, NA, and adult novels in sci fi, fantasy, contemporary, and paranormal genres. She is the author of the award-winning middle grade Evolution Revolution trilogy, Simple Machines, Simple Plans, and Simple Lessons. She co-authored the YA novels Blonde OPS, Sirenz, and Sirenz Back in Fashion. She has two short stories in the Beware the Little White Rabbit (Alice through the Wormhole) and Scare Me to Sleep (Faces in the Wood) anthologies. Having finished her MFA, she's applying what she learned and is working on several children's and adult novels, along with some short stories. She lives in NJ but dreams of a Caribbean beach house.