Let's start with how you learn your first word, your first visual, your first phrase.
A is for apple.
And so your plot can be the simplest of them all, a story with an apple. And this fruit is given to you the writer to make bigger than life, to lovingly build your story around. Too many details and the apple loses significance. So the first step to plot is control.
A is for apple. What comes to mind? Let me unveil examples of perfect control in plot development.
The Forbidden Apple
as in Adam's and Eve's story (it started with A, huh?)
The Poisoned Apple, variation of the Forbidden Apple
as in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
The Golden Apple
as in the one that brought forth the Fall of Troy in Homer's Illiad (oi, but that was a mighty finely intricate tale, indeed)
The Apple of Challenge
as in William Tell shooting the apple on his son's head
You see? One simple fruit, four diverse stories. All I had to do was show you an apple. And you weave your magic. So don't talk to me about building plots and charting chapters. Let me tempt you with this apple, apprentice.
What kind of apple do you see? It's a story in disguise.
