5 BEST Plot Devices in Storytelling (Writing Advice)

I am a 15-year-old who is writing a novel. I have currently written 250 pages and am a little over halfway done. Your videos have helped improve my writing greatly, and I will be sure to use your advice in my earlier chapters when I go to revise my manuscript.

Jaime's hand is also my favourite significant injury in fiction. It was executed so well and inspired me in my writing.

these are some great tips for moving along a story! glad writers have your channel as a resource :)

Another favorite plot device is when a character loses the ability that makes them special/their major strength. This can be taking away magic or an injury to an athlete. It forces the character to grow and realize who they are. Like what iron man says “if you’re nothing without the suit then you shouldn’t have it”

Jaime getting his hand cut off was one of the most shocking moments in GOT or any movie or series for that matter. It was so sudden and completely changed his character and arc in an instant. Great example. Love your stuff, keep it up! 👍🏼

My favourite plot device is a difficult one to pull off, but when it is done, it is done well. That is the hidden traitor. Where a member of the hero party turns out to be a/the villain. It needs to be done in such a way that you can see it In hindsight/rewatch, but it is subtle enough to go under the radar if you aren’t looking for it. A good one is the character “Chip” who is in a few episodes of NCIS season 3. He is awkward, starts fitting in, but then turns out to be framing another membI of the team. They then do a montage on all the subtle ways he did it from previous episode flashbacks/what you didn’t see/what happened after you stopped looking. Like zi say, it’s hard to pull off but great when successful.

The Chekov’s gun with Ripley in the loader was truly brilliant because the seed itself was delicious. The moment is tense where you don’t know if she’s going to make a fool of herself, then she performs, ends with a double-entendre that has both marines laughing. Cameron can tell a story, man.

One of my favorites is when the protagonist loses their “power” temporarily, especially when they view that power as a burden. Spider man 2 had the best scene of this, when a powerless Peter saves a girl from a burning building, only to overhear that a man trapped in the top floor, a man who only spider man could’ve saved, died. It both humbles the protagonist and reminds them that while they may suffer for their power, that suffering is far from meaningless.

Chekhov's Gun has to be my favorite. While I don't agree EVERY element of a story should be relevant to the plot (as it ends up becoming predictable), I do think every story should still have at least ONE element that gets barely shown up and then brought back later. It gaves stories a lot more depth on insight.

My favorite example of "Chekov's Gun" is literally a gun: The gun being purchased by Walter White/Heisenberg of "Breaking Bad" at the beginning of the final season. You know he's going to use it, you just don't know when.

For Chekovs Gun, my favorite has to be the ricin from BB. It was brought up since season 2 and wasn’t used until the final episode of the series

Some of my favorite plot devices that aren't mentioned in the video are: 1. The “change of heart”; Evil character turns good or good turns evil. 2. The “miracle discovery”; Especially in sci-fi it usually happens in the beginning of the story where a character discovers or invents a device the properties of which are not fully understood or surpass expectations. A good example of this plot device is Project Almanac. This plot device can also be used for people as well; ex. a rescue unit on a mission finds a sole survivor of a tragedy when it should have been virtually impossible for the person to survive the event. This person then proceeds doing “something” (add what pleases you). 3. The “lunatic”; A person who is not supposed to be well in their mind and usually during the first 30% of the story their actions seem erratic and out of place. But then the cause of their insanity is revealed or it becomes evident that their words and actions have some hidden reason. They may be a special case of Chekov's gun and can even be used as a way to foreshadow upcoming events or create a dipole of chaos & inevitability. This trope also helps to shift the focus of the reader from important bits that would otherwise betray a plot twist. One textbook example of this is Mel Gibson's character in the movie Conspiracy Theory. 4. The “road trip”; As I will explain, it is a means of narrative but also a plot device itself. Think of the most classic (and maybe the first known) and major road trip story, Homer's epic Oddysey. The character sure has a cause (returning to his home island Ithaka) that serves as a plot device itself but the fact that the "road trip" he takes is forced to be too long and hazardous really helps in fleshing out and developing his character and shows the magnitude of his resolve to return home. The road trip also facilitates writing one of the most difficult genres for a writer to coin; slice of life. 5. The “oath”; One group of people takes an oath to pursue a greater cause in their life. In the Chinese novel "The romance of the three kingdoms" Lui Pei, Quan Yu and Zhang Fei, 3 warrior landlords take an oath in the peach-garden to protect the Han empire and become sworn brothers. This plot device puts emphasis on how big the cause is, creates drama and allows for a more lyrical and epic style of writing. The drawback is that if done poorly then it comes out as tacky and cheap drama. 6. The “arrival after a death”; This trope combines what Brandon pointed out as unexpected arrival and discovery of a body. It doesn’t have to necessarily be an arrival of a new life or an actual death, it is more like a new beginning at the same time or shortly after a circle closes. This makes a very good liaison in bigger stories where, for instance, after a harsh battle the group barely escapes with their lives only to be saved by an unexpected ally who is then going to help their cause progress or reintroduce a concept that the protagonist as well as the reader “had got wrong all along”. It is also a cheat code when you have written yourself into a dead end and don’t know how to continue the plot towards the end cause. It is also a good way to use a “deus ex machina” because this trope happens during the middle of the story, therefore, you have the chance to explain something that during the end might have seemed a “plot armor”. 7. The “who is the culprit?”; Ok, that is one of the most classical tropes in mystery stories and one that works really well. It is the Agatha Christie format where the detective (ex. Hercule Poirot) knows that the murderer is one of X people and tries to discover who is it. The fun with this plot device is that it actually forces the audience to speculate alongside with the detective, to root for him and to become immersed into the story. Personally, I always feel like I am the detective’s sidekick. 8. The “idyllic island (locus amoenus)”; This plot device is an inversion of the plot device where the protagonist is forced into action because “everything is wrong”. For instance, Luke Skywalker is forced into action because everything is wrong; the events that are spun are way above him (there are deaths, mystery, weird robots, e.t.c all over the place). This plot device is the exact opposite; here the character’s struggle begins as an internal intuition that rejects the problem-free environment they reside into. One movie that kinda plays with this concept is the Stepford Wives but the movie that uses this plot device in a phenomenal way is the first Matrix. And I say phenomenal because the idyllic island is actually concealed in the reality we know (in its faultiness, with everyday problems). The plot then actually forces the protagonist, who has an illogical hunch that everything is wrong, to question reality and dive into the rabbit hole. This plot device is good because it helps the writer push the boundaries of the in-universe rules, stir up the self-created illusion of tidiness and turn the tables by introducing concepts that would seems out of place if they were just forced upon the reader. 9. The “return of the king”. This is probably self-explanatory. Lion King, Hamlet and Lord of the Rings are textbook cases where this plot device is utilized. While it has a great impact on the timeline of the story, this plot device is more esoteric and revolves around the protagonist’s struggle to accept their destiny/ responsibilities. It is also a great way to make your protagonist bleed and suffer which allows character development and progress of the story. 10. The “vicious circle”; This plot device plays with the concept of a theme doomed to be repeated again and again until the protagonist finds a way to break the vicious circle. One of the oldest narratives of this kind is a myth that is found in almost all cultures; the legend of the dragon slayer. In short, a dragon plagues a city/ village and demands a human (usally a girl) to be sacrificed in order to spare the lives of everyone else. Before the last girl of the village dies by the hands of the dragon the hero/ warrior arrives and slays the beast using his strength and wits. The vicious circle is a very frequent plot device in time travel stories as well and usually comes by the etiquette “time loop” but isn’t restricted into a specific genre (ex. Matrix uses the vicious circle when Neo reaches the source). 11. The “trial by fire”; This is used very frequently in teen adventure novels and shonen manga where the protagonist enters a tournament and fights for a price or their life. It is a reliable plot device but a writer is going to struggle to revamp it into something original because of how overused it is. The Hunger Games are the first one that comes to my mind. 12. The “mastery of the ultimate technique”; It is the plot device where the protagonist must become proficient into their art in order to face “the great challenge”. Star Wars, Avatar the last airbender and the Mask of Zorro (movie) plots are fueled by this concept in greater or lesser rates. The latter also has the classic plot device of “revenge” as a bonus. 13. The “time bomb”; This plot device is one of the easiest for a beginner writer because it tends to create drama and action naturally. The concept is that the protagonists have X time to prevent a really destructive event. Avatar the last airbender has Sozin’s comet, the firth element has the end of the world, Avengers the infinity war has the vanishing of ½ of all life in the universe and Clint Eastwood’s mystery/ detective movie True Crime has the execution of a potentially innocent convict. 14. The “butterfly effect”; This is a really though plot device and one of the most rare and creative ones. It is another version of Chekov’s gun but it plays with the concept of introducing events that seem completely irrelevant to the main plot, only to start making sense during the end of the narrative. Its really unique element is that the way this plot device works remains occult for most of the story only to justify actions in retrospect. The audience comes to understand the mechanic of the plot device retroactively, that way true motives and goals can be hidden in plain sight while the writer weaves pheudo- or semi-real plot devices on top of the real one. Lucky number slevin is a good example of this technique. 15. The "true name" (*edit): It is about a character that is nameless or has an identity/ name that is somehow different from the one they once had. Born identity (movie) is a classic example of this plot device. 16. The "those bond by destiny" (*edit): This plot device revolves around two characters whose personalities don’t match (and that usually don’t get along in the beginning) but are forced to co-exist due to a “whim of fate” but in the end of the story they become friends, they accomplish something great, they fall in love, e.t.c. The most classic example of this plot device from pop-culture is Ash and Misty from pokemon when Ash destroys Misty’s bicycle and she decides to follow him seeking compensation.

What's your favorite plot device? Let us know!

Best plot device I remember was Korben Dallas negotiating. Also him and Zorg never actually meeting, passing each other by a few seconds was as close as they got. It was very unique and we rarely see lead hero and villain never actually fighting each other.

I love chekovs gun, but we already mentioned it. The "guy who knows a guy" is one of me favorites. Instead of taking time out of the story to find a new character to help our main characters with XYZ, lets have one of the characters know a guy who knows a guy. Saul Goodman from breaking bad&better call Saul is a great example of this

I also really like the unexpected villain plot device. It has to be done well, and it can be done VERY badly ((cough)frozen(cough)), but when it's done well, it's a lot of fun imo. I like the one in Wreck it Ralph 1 a lot. Part of how they kept him hidden was because he was already an established antagonist and, unlike a friend/ally turning evil, sussing out any potential villainy seems less needed for an antagonist so people are less likely to figure it out ahead of time. But that film still plants more than enough clues for the eventual reveal to make complete sense. Unlike some films. (cough)frozen(cough)

My personal favorite is the "beacon of hope is actually an illusion" plot device. Where you spend the first half of your story aspiring to go somewhere or become somebody, only to realize it's actually a horrible place and not at all what you expected. Wizard of Oz, Halo, etc.

I used the ‘deal with the devil’ plot device in my novella, but has a twist with it. The main character actually refuses the deal and that’s the reason he gets chased by the antagonist, who was the devil who gave him the deal he refused.

Upgrade is by far one of my favorite movies in my favorite genre and wow you just inspired thousands of people to watch that amazing movie. Great video!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My favorite Chekhov's Gun moment is basically the entire first half of Hot Fuzz and how basically everything has a payoff in the second half of the film. But then Hot Fuzz is incredible on pretty much every level.