Plotting a novel - It's a must for me

[zmunkz]

I'd plot backwards and write forwards. For me, I would look at each major event, starting with the ending, and decide what I need to achieve that. If it requires more than one thread to get all the ingredients in place then fine. Then work back those threads and repeat the process. If I can make those threads cross over earlier in the plot without forcing it, all the better.

^this

But I'm an outliner at heart. I experimented with a pantsing novel but it doesn't work for me.

 

[Cli-Fi]

I'm not giving spoilers but most of them survive the first two books. At present I only know of one major character death but as Ian (the MC) is sixty-eight, Wilf, his partner is about seventy-two and his mother is at least eighty-eight... I mean they are all candidates for plausible natural deaths.

They wouldn't be in there if I didn't need them. It's a family saga and wouldn't be the same if I took them out. Some are more major than others. I use Ian and three of his sons (Matt, Pete and John) as POV characters in the first book. In the second book Pete is injured so I've traded him for Matt's wife, Ruth.

I'm not actually juggling any more characters than I did for my epic fantasy (nobody complained there were too many) but its been a challenge to get them straight because they nearly all have the same surname, and Ian and Pete are both grandpas. Ian, Matt, Pete and John are all referred to as dad etc, depending on who is talking to them.

Wow and I am having trouble with two main characters. I only have maybe ten in total lol.

 

[Ihe]

I keep trying to plot and tag all events, places, characters, plot points, but I must always desist, or my notes would have a higher word-count than the unedited story itself. I fall somewhere in the middle between plot and discovery. I admire those who can commit to either one or the other.

 

[Brian G Turner]

from now on, I will never, ever, begin writing a novel without first fully completing the plot chart.

The writing process has a habit of surprising you. The more you explore a story, the more you'll discover about it - and inevitably, that means new and unexpected directions can emerge. Even to the point of making major changes to characters and plot.

If you must have a written plan, I suspect you'll get more from it by being flexible enough to accommodate changes, and adjust accordingly.

I keep trying to plot and tag all events, places, characters, plot points, but I must always desist, or my notes would have a higher word-count than the unedited story itself.

The wordcounts for my notes are horrendous. I think WIP 2 had 80k before I started.

 

[Ihe]

Daaaaayyyuummmm

 

[Overread]

I think having a plan becomes increasingly important once you start to approach two criteria.
a) Sequels
b) Sequels written (in part/full) AFTER you publish the preceding book(s)

In both cases the presence of an overall plan that outlines most of the twists and turns, if not the detail of the scenes, means that the writer can be confident and introduce more pathways into the book without getting stuck against a wall. IT also means that you can place subtle references and content into earlier parts of the story which have impact later; even if its just to present bits of the world setting or history that tie in later. Thus making the story feel more complete; rather than like the author is always pulling new facts out of the air to suit the plot they are "forcing" being told.

The latter situation is even more important to consider (and lets remember many stories might start as a single stand-alone novel and then evolve into sequels - esp if they sell well) because once your book is out there you can't really change anything*. As a result you are locked into things that you might otherwise want to change (look at Game of Thrones where GRRM is now locked into multiple branching story paths and characters and is having a nightmare** of a job pulling it all together).

In general a simpler action story can often be told very easily in a rolling format. I think short stories are also easily done in sequence as your'e not dwelling on details so much as following the characters; so you don't always have to build as much history into the earlier parts because the character is encountering things as you go so its "ok" to have gaps in info that are presented latterly (although its good to have some early parts that don't result in an answer until much later - you can even leave some hints at background detail or unresolved subplots for a mystery in a stand-alone and build them into a sequel later).


So in some ways it is individual; but for certain situations and for books that often have multiple story paths and characters and for those that are going to form part of a larger series of works; then it makes full sense to have a plan of the plot. To not have one can be done but its very risky and you can easily come unstuck and either have to sacrifice quality of the story to patch things over; re-con earlier bits of info or take the story a way you don't want it to go (this latter one can work wonders but might also mean that you lose the plot of your own story which can lead to rambling or a sudden "rush" to the finish because the writers heart isn't in the story any more.


And as said earlier; the plan must be flexible. Indeed to my mind having a flexible plan is essential and the act of writing out the flexi-plan is part and parcel of any plan for a plot. You write the plan to allow yourself to be flexible without having already tied yourself down to huge amounts of work following pathways that are suddenly closed off to the story.



*Ok you can but people will notice and it can appear sloppy if done poorly; or if done on critical scenes or if done too often

**Assumed, though considering how long its taking to write the new book there is certainly some difficulty going on in writing it. I also think he's planning more of the proceeding book contents so that he's not as backed into a corner in the run up to the end.

 

[sozme]

I've had this in the past, too. Who am I kidding, I'm having it now. When I start my next big thing, I'm going to remind myself that three characters can generate enough complexities for a whole series.

It's incredibly difficult for me to finish a story with 3 povs. I don't know how other people do it. Do any of you just write one POV at a time?

 

[Gonk the Insane]

Hmmm. I'm not sure what your problem with multiple POVs is, can you explain? Is it switching from one person's head to another? To be honest I'd never seen this is a potential difficulty. In my (rather simplistic) mind, once I'd learned to write from one person's point of view, I applied that to others - just dipping in and out of characters with scene/chapter changes as necessary.

Do any of you just write one POV at a time?

Well, each scene (though usually chapter) is only from one POV so over a couple of writing sessions I'll only be in one character's POV, but I think you mean the book as a whole? I have heard of authors who will write, for example, a novel using 2 POVs and they'll write character 1's POV chapters first, all the way to the end of the book, and then go back and fill in the gaps with character 2's POV chapters. It's fine to do that if that works for you - there isn't really a right or wrong way to write your book, it's just finding what works for you.
I would think, though, that kind of approach lends itself better to a book where you've plotted the whole thing before starting. If, like me, you're a total pantser, then writing half the book after the fun of discoveries has already taken place might be a little less fun (I'd feel constrained, trying to fit character 2's activities around the plot that developed for character 1).

 

[The Bluestocking]

It's incredibly difficult for me to finish a story with 3 povs. I don't know how other people do it. Do any of you just write one POV at a time?

Um... not me. I really should (as a beginner) but I can't help it - the darn characters all appear and refuse to leave I have been told by at least two people **coughcough** You know who you are **cough** that my cast keeps getting bigger and bigger...

As for plotting - I have a JK Rowling like chart in an Excel spreadsheet to help me keep track. I know what the ending will be and some key plot points but so far, even the best-laid plot route seems to get derailed every now and then by my characters. I've learnt to roll with it as long as:

• My readers (aka my poor writing group who are the test subjects right now) aren't throwing rotten eggs at me or bored to death.
  
• We get there in the end. Limping? Maybe. Slightly mangled? Possibly. With sanity gone askew? Definitely.

 

[VinceK]

It's incredibly difficult for me to finish a story with 3 povs. I don't know how other people do it. Do any of you just write one POV at a time?

This is why I use a plot chart. Let's assume I have 3 POVs who exist throughout the story, they all interact with the story, and they may or may not interact with each other. By referring to the plot chart, I can see where each POV is in the story line, this prevents the issue of having one POV sitting on their hands for two days while the other two are off slaying the dragon.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Wow and I am having trouble with two main characters. I only have maybe ten in total lol.

This is where I find "casting" them with a famous actor helps - they are clear in my head.

 

[CWScott]

I like writing single POV, but my books tend to be short. There seems to be so much more for me to tell if I can head hop. My new series will have 4 POV, with a 5th small sub-plot pov. It's got large battles, so a single POV might get kind of dull. I've been separating them by chapter, so it's easy to keep track.

 

[NbDawn]

It sounds like you plan in the way I do. My outlines are very detailed as well. I start out with a basic outline of the main plot. Then I start filling in the blanks and come up with subplots. Each scene is then put on a note card. I line up the scenes for the main plot, then line up each of the scenes for each of the subplots. And lastly, I pick up each scene in the order I think they should go so that the plot and subplots are all intermingled into one long story. Then I begin writing each scene. At first I tell the story so that I make sure each scene has the element I want, then I start writing for real. The order of my note cards can change, but every element is planned and present so that, hopefully, I don't have any plot holes.

 

[LittleStar]

If you must have a written plan, I suspect you'll get more from it by being flexible enough to accommodate changes, and adjust accordingly.

This is exactly right. I don't think anything should be so set in stone that, if it feels natural to change, you'd rather resist than make a story better.

With my own planning, I do write scene for scene, snippets of conversatation, description, and general idea for the scene, they can be fairly detailed, maybe even 5-600 words for each scene or chapter. Ending up with maybe 30k chapter notes, and probably near the same for general everything notes for the series as well. (One of these days I might just post a snippet of my plan instead of writing it a bunch of different ways in these threads).
However, when it came to writing it there were still a couple of scenes that just felt right to be added, or extra changes to a character or conversation. So I went ahead and wrote them as needed, no planning.

 

[VinceK]

This is exactly right. I don't think anything should be so set in stone that, if it feels natural to change, you'd rather resist than make a story better.

Talk about Chinese whispers I never said anything about setting anything in stone. What I said was:
"However, I'm not despondent, quite the reverse in fact , because from now on, I will never, ever, begin writing a novel without first fully completing the plot chart."

I did not say my story cannot change. I can still introduce a new character, add scenes, adapt to changes, create a new sub-plot. It simply means I have charted the main plot from beginning to end.

I have plotted my route from London to John O'Groats, the roads upon which I travel may change, but my destination will not.

 

[Overread]

I would also say with a plan its a lot easier to change the destination. Because you've got the barebones structure so if you find things start to change or that you find you need to actually develop some new points you can slot them in and through the plan you can already adjust the future events to either swing back to your original target or adapt to a new one.

I think it also helps greatly in avoiding ending up with a dull period in the writing or getting writers block because you've already got the ending - you've already got an idea of where the story is aiming to go. Thus letting you focus on the writing of scenes and fitting them together.

I think it can also help you avoid cutting out too much; films show this very easily when you get scenes which are clearly cut short or bits that are missing that would otherwise provide key information or flesh out the story and scenes. With a story plan you can clearly see which bits need to be there and which you might be able to drop or change - or if you do remove htem you've already got a reason to fit that information in later so that your reader is not left guessing.

 

[Gonk the Insane]

As a bit of contrast (only The Judge has mentioned writing without outlines and plots thus far in the thread) I thought I'd share a couple of examples from the pantser's chair...

With my prison-break-jaunt last year I had a little bit more of an idea of how the story was going to progress than usual. As I got towards the end I got to worrying: it looked the whole thing was going to come in at about 65,000 words, shorter than anything I'd written before. By the time I got to that last chapter though I'd realised it was actually a book in 2 parts and there was a whole second part to tell. Thinking about it, though, that say more about my ability to spot where the novel ends than anything else. But, you know, there was half a book that I had no idea even existed (or needed to exist). I might have seen that with a detailed plot beforehand, but heck, it was fun finding out.

Next year I'll be starting an Epic Fantasy novel, and this time I'll be experimenting with starting with even less of a clue. The plan for the book is basically this:
It begins and ends with a dance*.

*Dances may involve bladed weapons.

 

[AmberEyes]

I started my current WIP with the big finale of the third book in the trilogy. I knew what I wanted the overarching plot to be, and worked out what I needed for that to happen, so kind of working backwards. Then I plotted forward for each book, working out smaller plotlines that got my character where she needs to be. I only got as far as the first one, so just started scribbling down major events for that one. I then sketched a basic world map, with that continent in more detail and as I did so, I realised a plan I had for a standalone scribbled down somewhere actually fit in with a couple of tweaks and became the smaller plot for the third one. With those in place, I kind of chucked a few ideas around for book 2 and its kind of starting to take place.

I usually plot basic events and certain developments I need, but then discovery write characters and how they get from one place to another. Larry Brooks Story engineering is good if you want help writing a detailed plot outline. He also has a website at storyfix.com with some great blog posts about story structure I found really helpful. x

 

[Gonk the Insane]

Larry Brooks Story engineering is good if you want help writing a detailed plot outline. He also has a website at storyfix.com with some great blog posts about story structure I found really helpful. x

I'd never heard of him but his site looks interesting. If you're a fan of his, I just found an interview with him on Joanna Penn's website here.