How to come up with a plot
You've got a character. Or a setting. Or one or two perfect scenes with oh-so perfect vibes that you can imagine clear as daylight in your head... But no storyline.
Hopefully this post solves that.
As a writer myself, I've struggled with this sort of thing a lot with the book I'm planning at the moment, so I'm writing from experience.
Very often, the posts I see talk about your character's motivation and goals - what they want to achieve in life, why they want it, but sometimes the characters we make don't have original goals, and therefore no motivation.
Here are a few thought processes to find a plot if your character has no original goals:
Think about how your story would start. What's normal life like for your character? Do they live in a snowy forest treehouse, and hunt food everyday, or do they live in a modern day city with shops and schools and phones?
Then think about what could change, and how that affects the character. Does a harsh winter cut off their food supply, meaning they have to go further away into the forest and then something happens? Or does a natural disaster hit some family or friends away in another town, and they have to go and check they're alright?
Think about these changes, and create some sort of problem that the character finds they could fix. Common things include family member falls ill and the character goes looking for a cure, character and Co have to flee their home because of said problem, some sort of evil has come to their home and they have to fight it, etc.
OR, you could think about what the character might do to muck things up. Maybe they accidentally (or on purpose) hurt a loved one, or they do something else that upsets a higher force, or a bad trait they have takes over for a few minutes, but at the end of it the damage is done - something the character does that they need to fix, then work out how they could fix it.
Your story will not entertain if the quest to fix the problem is easy. Think about some sort of obstacle that could hinder them - whether this be physical, emotional, or even magical (if your story includes magic), make sure you don't let them fix it without proving themselves.
MAKE SURE YOU WRITE THIS DOWN. you don't want to be reading this at 3am in the morning and then have a MASSIVE BRAIN SPARK and then forget it three hours later when you get up, and lose that information forever. Trust me. I know.
If you can't think of a problem, or any way that your character could have a problem, maybe go back to the drawing board and tweak your ideas slightly. Maybe include a slightly worse trait in your character, or think about what could happen to other characters - the possibilities are endless.
Good luck and happy writing!!
