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Creating good plot 
Well, after years of struggling with plot myself, I just had to share the kowledge that I stumbled upon with shortly ago. You see, the secret is that all good plots have the same characteristics. Even books share the general concept.
Please note that the following plot was concieved as i write this. ^_^
First off you need a main bad guy. It can be anything that you want, but you usually dont want to introduce him early on.
For the example my bad guy is Vazrah the Ash Dragon. He resides in a volcano, Mt. Razzavam. He prays on the all life on the continent, setting valleys a blaze just to torment the humans that he devours. Basically insanely evil.
Our bad guy cant do everything, he needs minions. Vazrah keeps close guard over his most valuable resource, the black gate. The black gate is where Vazrah rallies his minions. It lies within the depths of the mountain itself.
Now we need a reason for the character's questing against the bad guy.
Our main Character is Ilix. His father Damak is a dragon hunter. Damak and many men from the village decide the time for action (probably after some city is ruined or crops burn or something) so they go questing to slay the Ash Dragon.
Ilix was taught by his father to fight with a spear (traditional dragon slaying weapon), but he also was taught the ways of black magic, because his father knows that dragons are typically elemental in nature.
Good so Ilix quests against Vazrah for the whole "you killed my father!" bit. Overused but its only a small detail.
Ok, so we got the main set up for plot, but if Ilix ventured against Vazrah's army straight away, the plot would be linear and the sight seeing bland.
Now we just throw what i like to call the 'kicker' in. It basically gets the player to become interested in doing side wuests and whatnot. Just after the main goal is established, you distract them with a mandatory side mission.
In our case, a year after your father left, your city razed by Emporer Thanodan's army. Lead by the wizard general Davi, cities in the kingdom of Trad have been laid to ruin one by one. While hunting for your family or something, you come back to find the city burning. You jump right in to help and end up meeting with a Veteran soldier named Ollad. You fight with him for a while, him explaining that the object of Thanodan's conquest is the daughter of King Trad XII, princess Ife. Emporer Thanodan wants the princess for ransom, to gain the secrets of unleashing the sword of Myr, the fabled weapon capable of concouring the world. Ollad tells you that he is in fact the princess's guard and that she was smuggled out of the kingdom because Trad XII knows that his lines are breaking. He tells you to take Ife and head to the allied kingdom of Ahafra.
Its equally important to have your bad characters expressing some emotions (greed, rage, and that sort of thing), but also sometimes positive emotions are good to use (guilt, pity, etc) because when the time comes for the bad guy to say their final lines, its sometimes best to end them with dignity.
Damak always taught Ilix to honor the king and protect the kingdom, and he took this to heart. Not to mention the fact thats hes after Thanodan for killing his family and friends.
So basically your simaltaniously trying to kill the dragon and the emporer (who you get to first, in fact your main concern wont be the dragon until some plot is built up). Turns out though, that the sword of Myr has the power to seal Vazrah's black gate and slay the Ash Dragon. So you quest for the secrets to unlock it's true power, and then you kill Vazrah. Pretty simple.
Other things you want to consider:
Try to work in each character to the main plot, emotions can do this well. If someones out for revenge or wants something enough they have reason to tag along. Try to keep away from people wanting to come along for the sake of adventuring.
Plot twists keep the story interesting, some recomended ones for this plot would be the emporer's intention being to kill the dragon with the Sword of Myr or perhaps one of the forign nations betrays you.
Characters shouldnt be set definately in their allegance. Maybe Davi only did what Thanodan told him because Thanodan had his family imprisoned, or something. Thanodan could be under a monster's curse of mind control. You know, try to mix it up.
This plot took me about half an hour. You can do the same, its all about the order in which your ideas are chosen. Thats all I got really, feel free to add things that you can think of, and feel free to use this plot.
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Details
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Tutorial:
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Creating good plot |
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Date Listed:
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2008-06-08 |
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Author:
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Adamant
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Total Hits:
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7037 |
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