creativity secrets: successful plot writing

The two main ingredients of a compelling story are plausibility and dramatization. A story should evoke an emotional response or ring a bell in the audience so it must be something that one might encounter in real life. Yet, real events’ pace is usually slow and confusing; rarely do we end up in a situation with clear cut alternatives and stark outcomes. Life is full of the shades of gray. Therefore the two are the opposites and the writer’s task is to find a way to merge them together. I can offer one potentially rewarding plot cooking recipe: find two vastly different real life stories and woven them into one narrative.
Here’s an example:
There is real estate fraud, white collar crime when people reap each other up of hundreds of thousand dollars. And there is slums’ world when one might end up iced just because the hitman couldn’t read the address properly. The thing is that in real life people who commit the former type of crime live in a different universe from the latter ilk. Make them collide and you get yourself a compelling, touching story.
(reflections upon watching an old episode of the Law&Order (the Mushrooms).)