Having created characters, conflicts and journeys shaped by events, the writer has, in a sense, devised a plot. But it is more likely than not that further work will be required to make that plot fully effective for the target audience.

Creative vs Analytical Thinking

The process of devising characters, journeys, conflicts and events is primarily creative, though with a significant degree of analytical thinking. The task of shaping the results of this creativity into a plot ready for drafting is fundamentally analytical, though with a further component of creativity.

In short, at some point in the process of plot development, the writer must focus on organising the ideas already generated, certainly not as a means of stifling further creativity but rather to ensure that subsequent creative ideas are more likely to be relevant to the emerging scheme.

This is not to suggest that either creative or analytical processes should ever or indeed can ever be completely suspended, but simply that the writer must learn to control the respective taps.

The Camera as a Metaphor for Plot Development

The camera provides an excellent metaphor for the work of plot development.

The photograph is the finished work. The task of composing the photograph corresponds to that of plot development.

By creating characters, journeys, etc, we scatter interesting objects around the studio. Perhaps we might encompass them all within the photograph with the help of a wide-angle lens , but there is a danger that most of the detail will be lost from sight. More likely we will narrow our sights onto the most interesting view.

We may move some things around, polish them up a bit and so forth to enhance the image in the viewfinder, move the camera left, widen the view slightly and so forth. We may choose to keep the entire field of view in focus, or deliberately highlight one or more specific features to stand out from a meaningful blur.

This metaphor may help us to understand better the task of defining the plot we wish to show to our audience.

Determining the Medium for Communication

Plot development is largely concerned with setting the boundaries of the work to include the parts of the "big picture" we most want to show. The elements of the picture beyond these boundaries will not cease to exist, of course. Indeed, they may have a considerable bearing on the characters and events in the finished picture (the look of terror on the child's face might be explained by the gunman standing beside the photographer). But the excluded elements are relevant only insofar as they point the way towards or illuminate the chosen image.

The sort of camera lens to be used can be imagined as corresponding to the medium for which we choose to write.

At one extreme is the fish-eye lens , covering a very large proportion of the field of view: with much detail in perfect focus, but with images appearing relatively large and prominent towards the centre of the field of view and relatively small and insignificant towards the periphery. This is the novel, exploring a big subject on a grand scale but without losing depth.

At the other extreme is the telephoto lens , picking out a single detail from a wide landscape: the comedy or character sketch or, at the ultimate extreme, the "one-liner". And between the extemes may be found lenses for every conceivable medium: short stories, radio plays., epic poems and so on.

The central point here is that the extent of the boundaries shapes the writer's image of how the finished piece will look and, to some extent, dictates the medium for communication of the image.

Greater Depth

Now, with our lens already chosen, imagine what happens as we move closer to the subject: the subject appears in closer view and the edges of the image fall away. We see more clearly the wrinkles on the face, the relative dilation of the right pupil, and so forth. In short, (regardless of whether we have chosen to think in terms of a novel or a sketch) we are deciding to take a more in-depth view of the subject at the expense of extraneous details. Without changing our intention to write a short story, or whatever, we are in effect closing in on the material that really matters, focusing on the critical event out of all the events we have imagined, and deciding to construct our plot within more restrictive boundaries.

We need to hold the camera steady, though: if we move only slightly too far to the left, the subject may leave the viewfinder completely.

Transformation of the Subject

It is perhaps worth taking this analogy to extremes by imagining that we move closer still, even unrealistically close: to the mole on the face and from there to a minute hair growing in the mole, to the root of the hair, and so on. The point is that the subject, though intrinsically the same, is in effect transformed beyond recognition.

As we shed extraneous detail by moving closer, we lose the reference points at the edge of the picture that helped to define the subject, and ultimately end up with a completely different subject.

Up to a point, in this case the point at which the face ceases to be seen as a face, we are essentially being analytical: looking ever deeper into our subject. But when we look so closely as to see a different subject, we need new creativity to understand and explore that subject.

As writers, we should not shy away from this process. If we feel compelled to write, there must be subjects that we wish to explore in depth, even extreme depth. We should never forget that the act of "getting up close and personal" with our subject often reveals hidden doors into exciting new worlds of imagination.

Expanding the Subject Area

Moving back from the subject, by contrast, is largely a creative process. If the viewfinder already takes in the full set of characters, conflicts and events that we have devised, we must increasingly imagine new events, additional characters and longer jouneys to fill the expanding canvas.

This is similar to what we do when we are trying to generate new ideas: perhaps because our initial ideas lack some crucial component, such as the character or event that might be just out of the present view. As we continue to draw back, of course, our original ideas gradually diminish within the enlarging canvas, even to the point at which they vanish into a pinpoint.

In much the same way as when moving closer, the subject of the original view, though still intrinsically present, is completely changed.

The aim of this extended metaphor is not to judge any of these processes, but to facilitate the process of thinking about them. The choices of subject, medium, degree of depth, standpoint, etc are ultimately for the writer. All we can do here is to guide the writer towards the set of choices s/he prefers.