Breakout Session 2 - Plots, Bots, & Knots: How to fix your YA novel with Stacey Lee

Stacey Lee is the New York Times and Indie bestselling author of historical and contemporary young adult fiction, including The Downstairs Girl, a Reese’s Book Club Summer 2021 Young Adult pick, and her most recent novel, Kill Her Twice, a School Library Journal best book of the year.  A native of southern California and fourth-generation Chinese American, she is a founder of the We Need Diverse Books movement and writes stories for all kids (even the ones who look like adults). Stacey loves board games, has perfect pitch, and through some mutant gene, can smell musical notes through her nose. Connect with her @staceyleeauthor on Instagram, and @staceylee.author on Facebook.

Stacey will focus on the 3 core elements of plot: goals, obstacles, stakes.

Without these 3 elements your story lacks the gas your story needs to drive itself to its destination. 

1. GOALS

• Our character needs to want something
• Goals come in all sizes
• Goals need to be specific
• Goals change as the plot evolve

2. OBSTACLES

Types: physical, other people, a threat, internal struggle

There's no specific number of obstacle your novel needs. A rule of thumb: for every goal, your character needs at least one obstacle working against it. The more obstacles, the more interesting. 

3. STAKES

What is on the line for the character?

• what your character stands to gain or lose
• personal, shaped by the characters values
• internal stakes
• external stakes

So ask yourself:

What's at stake for your character? 

What is the worst that can happen?

What do they stand to lose?

If you want to view this session to hear the full content, along with the rest of the conference,

register at https://www.scbwi.org/events/virtual-summer-conference-2025. Replays of the

conferences will be available until September 14th, 2025.

Breakout Session: Plot Paradigms for Pantsers

Janet Fox’s books, picture book through young adult, have won awards including SCBWI’s Crystal Kite and Women Writing the West’s WILLA and received starred reviews and appeared on state lists. They’ve been included on best of lists like Bank Street Books, CBC, YALSA, Kirkus, and JLG. Her newest books are a middle grade novel, CARRY ME HOME (Simon & Schuster 2021), and a picture book WINTERGARDEN (Neal Porter Books illustrated by Jasu Hu, 2023). Upcoming books include THE MYSTERY OF MYSTIC MOUNTAIN (Simon & Schuster 2024) and THE REAL ROSALIND (Lerner, 2025, co-authored with Debbie Loren Dunn); she also contributed the Connecticut story to SCBWI/Godwin Books HAUNTED STATES OF AMERICA. Janet is the mother of a writer son, and she lives in Montana with her husband and their lively yellow Lab. janetfox.com

Story is all about change. If there's one thing Janet wants this group of pantsers to takeaway, it's this-change is key! 

And, turning points are key moments of change. 

Your protagonist needs to make things happen that change the course of the external action in the story, and your protagonist will change internally over the course of the story. 

There are 7 key turning points in story:

• the inciting incident
• plot point one (end of Act 1, beginning of Act 2)
• the midpoint
• the crisis point
• plot point two (end of act 1, beginning of act 3)
• climax 
• resolution

Plot paradigms (there are many) are just a guide. This is important to remember for those writers who are more organic and intuitive. 

Cause and effect is what moves the story forward. It's the propulsion for change. 

"Plot grows out of the actions of your character and not the other way around."

A favorite definition of plot for Janet.

Creative Lab: Emily XR Pan - Storytelling Structure: Lining Up the Bones of a YA Novel

 

Sunday brings more excellent deep dives in the Creative Labs. 

Emily XR Pan explores storytelling structure with an engaged group of attendees who dive into a new structure for the classic Cinderella fairytale. 

A fantastic takeaway from this lab is the question: 

What am I reading for? 

We want our readers to always have an answer to that question. I'm reading to find out if they kiss. I'm reading to keep laughing. I'm reading to find out who did it. Etc. 

...

Emily X.R. Pan is the New York Times bestselling author of THE ASTONISHING COLOR OF AFTER, which won the APALA Honor Award and Walter Honor Award. It was also a finalist for the L.A. Times Book Prize, longlisted for the Carnegie Medal, and named by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 Best YA Books of All Time. Her latest novel, AN ARROW TO THE MOON, was an instant national bestseller, a Locus Award finalist, a CALA Award nominee, and featured on NPR’s Best Books of 2022. Emily is currently on faculty in the creative writing MFA programs at The New School and Vermont College of Fine Arts. You can find her on social media: @exrpan.

Plot Your Novel in One Hour with Naz Kutub

Naz Kutub is author. His debut novel LOOPHOLE came out last year. His next novel NO TIME LIKE NOW comes out in February 2024 (and we all get a sneak peek at the cover!). 

We are going to plot an entire novel in one hour. Come along for the ride. 

Grab pen, paper, and keyboard and get ready.

Starting with the seed (an idea). And we all start with this: When she found the ticket, everything changed...

Choose one of these age groups and genres.

A story needs to be plotted out so that your have story progression; increase tension and raise the stakes. Put your story on an upward trajectory. 

Set up goal posts first! If you know the beginning and the ending, your mind can start to fill in the blanks in the middle. 

Naz is setting us up to walk through the Hero's journey (with a few tweaks).

Act 1

• Who is she? 
• Something that tells her she needs to go on this adventure (she finds the ticket)
• She doesn't want to go on the adventure... (Why? Because life is comfortable as is?)
• Someone gives her advice, could be a traveling companion, or a random stranger.
• She decides to go through the door of no return. (Something she can't undo or backtrack from.)

Act 2

• She encounters a friend, group, and/or enemy, both who test her resolve. (Will they help or hinder?)
• She approaches an uncomfortable moment/event (something she's never done before)
• A series of challenges to help her become stronger, better than before, teach her a lesson (or maybe just one major challenge)
• She receives something to aid her in future battles/confrontations (a special item? new knowledge?)

Act 3

• She heads on her way to the final destination, knowing this is it (the final uphill climb)
• Final fight, but does she survive and carry on stronger than before? 
• She's armed with the knowledge to solve any problem now (Is this the same ending you envisioned earlier?)

Did you get a skeleton of something plotted? It's not easy, as Naz reminds throughout the process. Naz suggest studying the Hero's Journey, practicing, adding twists, and breaking the rules. 

.

If you want to view this session to hear the full content, along with the rest of the conference, register at https://www.scbwi.org/events/summer-conference-2023. Replays of the conferences will be available until September 10, 2023. 

Bruce Coville: Plot, Character, and the Emotional Life of Story

Bruce Coville is the award-winning and beloved author of over a hundred books for children and young adults.

Bruce says plot and character are inextricably linked. You can't talk about plot without talking about character. You can't talk about character without talking about plot.

Bruce is a plot writer.

The best story telling energy has a bridge between male and female storytelling energy.

A great ending is both a surprise and inevitable. It is not a coincidence.

You can use a coincidence to start a story. The further along the coincidence occurs, the less believable it is.

What is a good story? Three thing Bruce loves to find in a story and also tries to put them in his own work. He likes to call them: Ha, Wah, and Yikes.

• A belly laugh
• A tear
• A gasp of surprise

If all three are in a story, the reader is bound to be satisfied.

Story recipe: Take somebody you like and get them in trouble.

By asking questions and inventing scenes that answer those questions you write a story.

Stories happen when characters have to choose. Make your character make a tough choice. Your character's need will drive the action.

Plot happens when desire meets obstacle.

If you've never heard Bruce Coville speak and you get the opportunity, don't hesitate for a second.

Jill Santopolo: 20 Master Plots - Go on a Story Brainstorming Binge

Jill Santopolo

Jill Santopolo is an executive editor at Philomel Books, and is the author of book series for YA and MG readers, including the Alec Flint series, Sparkle Spa, and Follow Your Heart.

As an editor, she works with Jane Yolen, Andrea Cremer, T.A. Barron, and more wonderful authors. Her list includes picture books, middle grade, and young adult novels.

Jill was worried that no one would show up, but she ran out of handouts and several people were sitting on Dan Santat's lap.
She talked to us about strategies for developing plots, which she considers to be the backbone of stories. Her goal was for us to leave the room with five potential stories we can tackle in the future.

In addition to sharing several plot types with us, she walked us through questions designed to help us build the scaffolding of our stories.

Among the plot types she described:

• The quest: Rick Riordan's THE LIGHTNING THIEF is a great example of this. Percy is at home, lacking an understanding of his life and relationship with his father. A force makes him act in a new way. A motivating incident occurs. And he meets buddies (there are always buddies). The middle makes things interesting; the end provides the answer to the lack.
• The pursuit: Marie Lu's LEGEND. She establishes the good guy and the bad guy, the stakes of the pursuit, and the incident that sets it in motion. Twists, turns, and reversals follow. In the end, she sets someone free (though catching him could also be the resolution).  
• The underdog plot: The story starts in a conflict-ripe world. A catalyst pits rivals against each other. There is a power struggle. The antagonists gain upper hand. In the middle: two sides are equal in power. Then come more power shifts. Then the underdog is empowered. In the end, there's a confrontation and the underdog wins.

It was an incredibly useful session, with lots of great insight about how we can frame the shape of the stories we're working on using a simple series of questions.

Jill's website.

Emma Dryden: The Pre-#NY14SCBWI Conference Interview by Martha Brockenbrough

Make sure to check out Martha's wonderful interview with Emma Dryden. 

They talk about plot, reading and so much more, and it's packed with gems like these:

"the most common oversight I see writers making is not writing to the hearts of their characters and not allowing their characters to be the emotional and psychological heroes of their own stories." - Emma Dryden

and

"Writing is a lifelong process of learning, deepening and evolving craft..." - Emma Dryden

While the full-day plot intensive Emma is moderating the Friday before the conference is sold out, there's so much more to the 15th Annual SCBWI Winter Conference that you can still attend, including:

Keynotes by Jack Gantos, Kate Messner, Elizabeth Wein, and Sharon Draper,

THE ART OF THE PICTURE BOOK PANEL with Peter Brown, Raul Colon, Marla Frazee, Oliver Jeffers and Shadra Strickland

BANNED BOOKS PANEL with Ellen Hopkins, Author, Joan Bertin, Executive Director, National Coalition Against Censorship, and Susanna Reich, Chair, Children’s and Young Adult Book Committee, Pen American Center

THE FUTURE OF AUTHORSHIP PANEL with Paul Aiken, Jean Feiwel, Jane Friedman, Abbi Glines, and Tim Travaglini

Your choice of two out of twenty-four special Breakout Sessions discussing craft, marketing, illustration and more,

Plus a Portfolio Showcase, a Saturday Gala dinner, and the magic mix of Craft, Business, Inspiration, Opportunity and Community that makes SCBWI Conferences such amazing and worthwhile events!

You can find out more details and register here.

CHRIS EBOCH: "What I Learned From Nancy Drew: Tools for Fast-Paced Plotting"

CHRIS EBOCH: "What I Learned From Nancy Drew: Tools for Fast-Paced Plotting"

It LITERALLY was a packed room for Chris Eboch's "Fast-Paced Plotting" lecture. So packed that (NO exaggeration), about a couple dozen people sat in the AISLES, taking copious notes.

Chris provided a handout with extremely detailed notes on plotting plus book recommendations. Some highlights from her handout and from the lecture:

-- She showed the original ending for a Nancy Drew cliffhanger followed by the extensive revision and discussed the reasons behind those changes. Her editor said, "I would like to see more of a slow build-up toward the intense action. In horror movies, it's always the ominous music and the main character slowly opening the closet door that scares us the most, not the moment right after she opens the door."

-- Some books she recommended included her 2009 book, "Haunted: The Ghost on the Stairs" and "Haunted" The Riverboat Phantom" from Aladdin. She also recommended Louise Spiegler's "The Amethyst Road" and "Self-Editing for Fiction Writers" by Renni Browne and Dave King."

-- Add subplot: "If you can't pack your main plot any fuller, try using subplots to add complexity and length to your manuscript. A subplot may be only loosely related to your main plot, but still add complications."

-- Chris also advised, "To keep tensions high, make sure your characters are struggling enough." She mentioned the "Rule of Three" where a character tries and fails a first time, tries and fails a second time, and then tries and succeeds, achieving the goal by the third time. "If the character succeeds on the first tyr, then we don't believe the problem was that difficult for that character." She said it's "satisfying" when the character finally achieves the goal by the third time and proves the problem was a "worthy challenge." Although the "Rule of Three" is used in picture books, Chris advises that in novels, there are often many steps beyond just three tries, and writers must make sure these many complications always push the story forward.

Overall, Chris had a very detailed and extensive lecture with many great tips on how to improve the plot of your novel and to make sure the pacing never drags. The handout she distributed among the standing-room-only crowd was especially valuable with her meticulous notes. Another fantastic example of the wonderful information you can learn at this conference!

Posted by Paula Yoo