An Exercise in Plotting: The Seven Sentence Story

Good plots have several components: an inciting moment, rising action, a climax, and a denouement.  One way to see how a plot can work is to build a plot skeleton, a very short story, stripped of everything except the plot.

 To write this kind of story, you are limited to only seven sentences.  Each sentence has a specific role.

1. Introduce what the main character wants and the first action that he/she/it takes to accomplish that goal.
2. The results of the action the character takes from sentence #1 has to make the situation worse.  The character should be farther from the goal now.
3. Based on the new situation, the character takes a second action to accomplish the goal.
4. The results of the second action the character takes from sentence #3 is to make the situation worse.  The character should be even farther from the goal now.
5. Based on the new situation, the character takes a third and final action to accomplish the goal.
6. This third action either accomplishes the character’s goal, fails to accomplish the goal, or there is an unusual but oddly satisfying different result of the last action.
7. The denouement.  This sentence wraps the story up.  It could tell the reader how the character felt about the results, or provide a moral, or tell how the character’s life continued on.

 Example Story:  Jane’s Homecoming Disaster

1)     More than anything in the world, Jane wanted Brad to take her to homecoming, so she asked her best friend, Cindy, to find out if he liked her.  2) Cindy was charming, clever and funny when she talked to Brad, and before she could bring up the subject of Jane, Brad asked her if she would like to go to homecoming with him.  3) Sad to learn her best friend had betrayed her, Jane decided to convince Brad he’d made a mistake, so she approached Brad’s friend, Larry, with a plan to make Brad jealous.  4) Unfortunately, Larry got into the playacting too well, and actually fell in love with Jane.  5) In frustration, Jane met Larry at Bubble Tea house to have a heart-to-heart talk about why he couldn’t possibly be in love with her and why Brad and Cindy were a bad match.  6) However, during the conversation, Larry was so charming, clever, and funny that Jane realized she liked him too, so she asked him to go to the dance with her.  7) The two couples decided not to double date, because that would be weird, but it was the still best homecoming ever.