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I plot. I spend weeks figuring out characters, locations, and flaws. And then I dig in deep. I plot my story out, by acts and beats, down to each and every scene of my story. And, sometimes, those scenes have beats and entire stretches of dialog in the notes. Thinking Through Our Fingers: In the Mind of an Outliner – Arcs and Structure. This is front loading a story with lots of work. I know this. But as a teacher, mom, wife, and all the other things, I realized I was doing more work trying to keep a story in my head than taking theRead More →

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Then 09.17.2008 Structural Integrity, Baby When I start a story, I figure out pretty quick what that first turning point is going to be and where the plot (and subplots) will have to get to for it to happen. I’m a pantsy plotter. That also sets me down the road of “What happens next?” Well, the whole world just turned on it’s side–for good or bad, or both–and people (characters) are going to be scrambling to figure out how this new world works, where they fit in it, and how the heck they get to their goal now. Don’t think of it as outlining, whichRead More →

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Alicia Rasley (blog) is a wildly talented writer and teacher who should get more recognition than she does. I bought her e-book in PDF, Discovering the Story Within, before people were even reading e-books. (My only complaint: it’s full of awesome worksheets, but the PDF is protected against copying, pasting, highlighting–anything you right-click to do, so filling them out in a word-processing program is impossible.) Plotting But, for today, and for GMC month, I’d like to point you to an article she did on her site called Plotting Without Fears. In this article she tells you the quick and dirty way to plot a story. FindRead More →

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So, I needed some creative inspiration. I keep coming back to these characters. Their story stalled on me. It lacked direction, I think. But the characters. I love these characters. Then, a series of blog posts came across my computer, on Tarot cards and writing from Raelyn Barclay (@raelynbarclay on Twitter). I remembered a Material Girl post I did, years ago, about using Tarot cards to help write. I’d even picked out the deck I wanted (which is good, I’d never have remembered after this long). I couldn’t get the idea out of my head. I checked out the cards again and they’re just beautiful.Read More →

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  I bought another pack of index cards.  I’m at this point in my story where I’m chucking what doesn’t work (after 11k words, trust me when I say: it could be worse).  I’ve got to keep what works (mostly the characters) and dig deep and find the goals and the antagonist(s) and the conflict. (Why do I forget these things when I first start writing?  It’s like I have to play with my characters for a bit before I can rip them apart and say, “You’re not quite right.”) So, I’m in the grocery store and there’s this pack of index cards. A bigRead More →

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I learned a few years ago, when I lost an entire weekend to the time-suck that was Seasons 1 and 2 of Grey’s Anatomy, if you watch a television series in order, for at least a season, you can actually learn a lot.  A season of television (good television, anyway) has story structure, character arc, and escalating conflict. Think about it.  You get 22-25 or so episodes in a season of (most) TV shows.  A season is structured to introduce the season’s conflict, build the tension, tie up the plot in a nice bow, and introduce next season’s story question.  An episode does the sameRead More →

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And the birds sang, the trees swayed happily, and I was free.  Free to spend as long as I needed filling in character, backstory, synopsizing scenes, and outlining. I have this from very reliable sources.  I recently took a Write It Forward workshop from Bob Mayer (on Twitter @Bob_Mayer) on Plot and Outline.  He says: Failing to do this essential background work sabotages the story before you type your first word and becomes very apparent to readers as they progress in your work. (Truly, this workshop was chock full of empowering, on-target info.  It would be worth the money to invest in one of the WriteRead More →

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On Kathy Carmichael’s awesome site, she has a form to aid in creating a short synopsis and plotting your story.  You should go download that now.  I’ll wait. She suggests, on the first page, to list ten events that will help change a character’s core belief and to keep in mind the stages of change.  This opened up a whole new way of looking at structuring character arc for me so I wanted to share what I’d found on the stages of change. The earliest stage of change is known as precontemplation. During the precontemplation stage, people are not considering a change. People in thisRead More →

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Excellent article about how to plot your novel so the reader can’t put it down.  Also, will explain what an “HCM” is. Today’s best novels make readers so desperate to know what happens next that they’ll stay up reading well past midnight, blistering thumbs and all, until THE END. Then and only then will they be able to relax, their souls flooded with satisfaction, relief and peace. Only to be followed—ideally!—by a gnawing sense of unfulfillment, anxiety and a compulsion to read more books by you. via Writer’s Digest – How to Make Your Novel a Page Turner.Read More →

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There are as many ways to plan out a novel as there are writers. Each writer goes about it a different way. via Planning, Outlining, and Organizing Your Novel – Or Not! « Word Sharpeners. This is an excellent article on the many ways to plot your novel, even if you write by the seat of your pants (pantser!).Read More →