How to Borrow a Plot for Your Novel

Do you have a good idea for a novel but don’t know how to develop it?  Do you want to write a great adventure novel but still are not sure about how the plot should go? Well, then stay close, because this might just be the solution to all your problems. Borrow a plot! After all, the movie industry has been doing it for centuries. Why shouldn’t you?

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Two words for you: Orphan princess. Does it sound familiar? Successful formulas are repeated all around us and more often than not we don’t even notice. We get caught in the outer layers, but deep inside, we have consumed the same recycled stories over and over. Why? Because they work. This doesn’t mean a certain work will lack creativity. On the contrary, there needs to be enough effort to make the same basis so different that people can’t tell one from the other.

In today’s article, I’ll be teaching you how to borrow a plot, so sit tight and get ready, because you are about to get yourself a plot for your novel.

But… before we get into details, let’s get some concepts clear.

Plot

Well, according to the almighty Wikipidea:

“In a literary work, film, story or other narrative, the plot is the sequence of events where each affects the next one through the principle of cause-and-effect.”

Wikipedia

So, we can say that plot is what actually happens in the novel, the different events that occur one after the other, each one as a consequence of the previous one”. 

If we don’t have these events, we can’t have a story. Furthermore, these events need to be sequenced in a way that gives the story the right pace, balance, progression, that it needs to keep the readers interested. This is something hard to achieve for many writers and will, to a large extent, determine the success of the story.

Borrowing a plot

This is simple. We are going to “borrow” an already existing, successful plot to take it as the base of our own plot. The whole “borrow a plot” thing means, of course, we are not going to keep it. That would be silly, because we would never get published or accepted if our work only consists of copy-catting another author’s job.

So, we’ll just take it for a while, dissect it to see how it works, and then we’ll just put it back together and give it back to its true owner. It’s not ours to keep, but we can definitely learn from it while we have it.

So, without further ado, let’s see how you can “borrow a plot”.

1. Decide what type of plot you are going to use for your novel.

What kind of story do you want to write? There are 6 (or 7) types of plot and every story is said to fall into the general structure of one of them. Here we have some examples of plots you can use and that have been used thousands of times before.

• Quest: The hero needs to go out to try to save or retrieve something or someone while facing several obstacles along the way. (Raya and the last dragon)
• Overcoming the monster: The hero will need to defeat a monster or force that threatens to destroy the world as we know it. (Harry Potter)
• Rags to riches: The MC acquires new resources, money, or love interest. He loses all, and then regains it, after having learned important lessons. (Aladdin)

There are other kinds of plots, but these are probably the most common ones.

Each kind of plot is composed of certain specific events or specific types of events. Then, determining which kind of plot you want will help you narrow down what kind of events you want in your story.  Simple, right?

2. Make a list of stories with the same kind of plot.  

Now that you have decided what plot you want, make a list of all the stories, movies, novels, that have this same type of plot and that you have enjoyed in the past. The list doesn’t have to be too long. This step might take some time and I assure you it will be wonderful because you’ll discover stories that are very different, yet so similar and while doing so, you’ll be seeing them as a true writer would do.

For example, if I’m writing a Quest, then I’ll include in my list stories like Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, Raya and the Last Dragon, Zootopia, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and so on.

3. Identify the events

Next, you are going to pick your favorites out of that list. Identify what their Acts are and identify the events, by taking all the outer layers off.

For the purpose of explaining this point, I’ll be focusing on the Second Acts of:

• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
• Zootopia
• Raya and The Last Dragon

For example, in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the magic trio needs to find Horcruxes hidden in the magical world. They’ll be trying to figure out clues while facing danger to try to get them. 

Zootopia follows a similar pattern, Judy gets a friend and starts sorting obstacles to get clue after clue. This will take her to different locations, every new clue takes her to the next, in a sort of Dora-the-Explorer kind of way.

Raya and the Last Dragon, again, has the same pattern. Raya goes town after town with her newfound friends, collecting the pieces of the magic gem, getting attacked, and having to escape several times.

So, if we take what makes all these stories different, we are left with the core, the essence:

Character goes to collect a new clue or piece, they get attacked and manage to escape: 
  (Harry getting into the Ministry of Magic; Harry’s visit to Bathilda; Harry’s incursion in Gringotts)
   (Raya in pretty much each one of the villages she visits)

Notice that the attacks can come from different perpetrators but that all represent the antagonist of the story.

As one of my favorite singers would say: “… lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, rinse, repeat…as needed.” 😉 

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4. Apply those events to your own story

Now, taking into account the essence of the event, start applying the layers of your own story to it. So, let’s say that in your second Act, your character will also be collecting clues to find X, while they escape from Y. You can also do this by substituting keywords in a summary.

For example: 

Step 1: Identifying the events: 

Harry, Ron, and Hermione get into the Ministry of Magic to retrieve the locket. They have to fight Death Eaters to escape. As a result, Ron gets splinched.

Step 2: Taking out the outer layers

a) Harry, Ron, and Hermione get into the Ministry of Magic to retrieve the locket. They have to fight Death Eaters to escape. As a result, Ron gets splinched. 

This translates to:

b) Protagonist(s) get into a Dangerous Place to retrieve Something Important. They have to fight Enemies to escape. As a result, Something Bad Happens. 

Step 3: Applying it to your own story (Example:)

Nayra and Dash get into Military Camp to retrieve the Treasure Map. They have to fight Soldiers to escape. As a result, Nayra Gets Hurt. 

You can apply this algorithm to any part of any plot, or to the summary of a whole plot. 

Let’s try now with the summary of a plot. This time, I’ll be using Shadow and Bone. 

Alina Starkov, an orphan teenage girl discovers she can summon Light, a unique power that can destroy The Shadow Fold. 

Nayra, an orphan teenage girl discovers she can talk to dragons, a unique power that can save her kingdom.

Practice doing this a couple of times with your favorite stories, the results might surprise you. 

5. Mix it up

Don’t stick to only one story to create your own. Use several storylines and take from each one what can fit the best in your novel.

For example, you could use the First Act of Mulan, to structure your own, but then, you could use the Second Act of The Hunger Games. It all depends on the kind of story you want to write.

6. Only inspiration

Remember, “borrowing a plot” is just about that: borrowing. We are not allowed to keep it. First of all, because it isn’t ours. So, make sure you make enough changes, people would never suspect they are in front of the same kind of story or that you ever took inspiration from any of them. Inspiration is the keyword here.

Summing up…

Borrowing a plot is a technique that has been around for quite a long time. Guess what? We have been consuming stories that are completely different but that share the same key elements… And those elements can also be applied to your work.

How to do it?

Well, that’s simple:

1. Decide what type of plot you are going to use for your novel.
2. Search for stories with the same kind of plot.  
3. Identify the events.
4. Apply those events to your own story.
5. Make sure to only use the other stories as inspiration.

Thousands of other people have already done it. Are you ready to borrow a plot?

Let me know how it goes in the comments.

See you soon!