Hip Deep in Plot

One of the things that I love about writing is that there's always something new to learn. I'm not talking about research--though that definitely qualifies!--but about the process of writing and about myself. There's an old adage that says, "The older you get, the less you know." It should really be phrased, "The older you get, the more you realize there is to learn."

I like that writing is an organic, living process for me. That the way I write this book won't be exactly the same as the way I write the next book. I like that I started this journey a few years ago with assumptions about what it meant to write a book and what it meant to be a writer and that, for the most part, I've had to toss those assumptions out on their ear or give up being a writer.

You know the part I really like? That each and every one of us does things differently. That there are no rules when it comes to how you write. That there is no way to do it wrong. The only criteria for success is whether you meet whatever personal goal you set for yourself, be it finishing a book, submitting to an agent or editor, or getting a contract. I'm the only one who can decide if I'm successful. If you've never worked in a highly structured, highly managed environment (e.g. for a big corporation), you may not understand just how freeing (and sometimes terrifying) that really is.

(Great, now I've got, I am the very model of a modern Major-General, running through my head. Funny how the singer sounds an awful lot like Tom Lehrer. ....A-n-d now I'm back. :-) *

The last couple of weeks I've been focused on plot. Hip deep in it, as the title of this post says. I've been applying new (to me) approaches and coming up with a workable structure and a lot of ideas for scenes. I've learned quite a bit about what works--and especially what doesn't--for me from all the books I've started writing and then abandoned in the last few years. It all seems to be coming together. The best part is that I'm more excited than ever about this story. Coming from someone who had convinced myself that knowing too much about what was about to happen was a sure fire way to kill a story dead for me, I have to say I'm a bit in shock.

My goal is still to have a first draft done before heading off to the RWA National Conference. And for the first time since I started working on this, even with the short time left before the conference, I actually feel like I'll make it.

* With apologies to Gilbert & Sullivan, Tom Lehrer, and the Duke of Wellington (gratuitously pictured)

Sarah's Plot Puzzle: Roots of Genre romance Plots?

Current Project: Blindsight
Status: Discovery Wordbuilding for Revisions

I was skimming through Ronald B. Tobias’s famous book, 20 Master Plots, the other day when I had an idea. Just for fun, I decided to try matching ‘Classic’ romance plots with Tobias’s non-romance ‘Masters’ from which they may have evolved.

Check out changingminds.org for a summary list of Tobias’s Master Plots. Here are the match-ups I made.

Romance Plot--------------------Master Plot

Secret_Baby----------------------Discovery Plot

Woman-in-Jeopardy------------Pursuit/Rescue/Escape Plots

Mystery-----------------------------Riddle Plot

Vampire/Shape-Shifter---------Metamorphosis Plot

Romantic_Triangle--------------Rivalry/Underdog Plot

Runaway_Bride------------------Pursuit/Maturity/Transformation

Reunion/Second Chance--------Discovery Plot

Treasure_Hunt--------------------Quest/Adventure Plot

Do my match-ups make sense to you? Try it; it’s a fun and enlightening way to learn more about plot. Can you come up with more matches?

Storyboard: Chart Your Story to Find Plot Holes

Current Project: Blindsight (working title), PN
Status: Characters stuck in limbo in middle of climax due to Other Obligations

My process includes writing a full-on, NaNoRiMo-style First Draft in order to avoid waking my Internal Editor. After doing a lot of brainstorming about characters, GMC, settings, and Major Turning Points, I am ready to roll. When I reach The End, I put the First Draft away for a couple weeks, take a break, and work on something else.

Then I chart my manuscript, chapter by chapter, scene by scene, on a Storyboard. I use this tool to create a visual representation of my book on a big piece of oak tag board.  Some authors use a white board and erasable markers. The Storyboard allows me to examine the story’s structure and find plot holes; out-of-place, missing, or unnecessary scenes; places where my pacing drags; threads that haven’t been neatly tied up – and anything else I want to track.

A storyboard can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be. There are no rules, only guidelines.

I mark out a grid with a pencil or permanent marker: four rows (each representing about one-quarter of the story –Acts 1 thru 4) of five boxes ( for a twenty-chapter book; you can adjust for your own work.)

BASIC STORYBOARD GRID

Ch. 1 Inciting Incident ACT 1	Ch. 2	Ch. 3	Ch. 4	Ch. 5 1ST TP
Ch. 6 ACT 2	Ch. 7	Ch. 8	Ch. 9	Ch. 10 2ND TP
Ch. 11 ACT 3	Ch. 12	Ch. 13	Ch. 14	Ch. 15 3RD TP
Ch. 16 ACT 4	Ch. 17	Ch. 18	Ch. 19	Ch. 20 The End

For one story, I began with a very simple Storyboard to examine suspense and romance plots in order to balance them in a romantic suspense. I also tracked POV character for each scene.

Make up your own color scheme. Just be sure to post a list of what your sticky colors mean somewhere on the blank area of the board for easy reference. The blank areas also give you a place to track deleted scenes, write notes to yourself, etc.

Square orange sticky notes told me what happened in the suspense plot in each chapter.
Pink listed the romantic developments.
Green were the subplot
Yellow tracked the H/H’s Story Arcs

I used sticky tabs for each scene in the chapter. These included chapter/scene numbers (1-1, 1-2, etc.) and a description (Body find, First Meet, etc.)
Heroine’s POV scenes=pink tabs
Hero’s POV scenes=green tabs
Villain’s POV scenes=purple tabs

SAMPLE CHAPTER BLOCK

Suspense Plot Kickoff (Meg, Alex, dogs=Beauty and the Beast) Dogs find body – someone’s framing Meg for murder Sisters toss body in the river [ORANGE]	Romance Plot First Meet (Meg, Lance=police chief/ hunky neighbor, Beast) Lance shows up looking for uncle’s lost dog (Dingbat) [PINK]
Subplot Kickoff Tish=Meg’s sister and Jamie=Tish’s Bosnian friend/ co-worker CONTRASTS w/ Meg’s foreshadowing [GREEN]	Meg’s Character Arc Sisters State Meg’s Goal Lance’s Character Arc Shows he needs to prove himself as the new Chief [YELLOW]
1-1 Body Find M=POV [PINK]	1-4 Meg waits during search M=POV [PINK]
1-2 First Meet L=POV [GREEN]	No scene
1-3 Body-in-woods Call L=POV [GREEN]	No scene

I could see at a glance whether or not a chapter included movement in both plots. I could follow plot threads easily. If someone other than the protagonist had too many POV scenes, or I forgot to let the reader know what the villain was up to for too long, the color patterns made these things obvious.

Here’s a photo of the one I did for a single-title Romantic Suspense with multiple subplots:

The vertical row of stickies down the left side is my reference guide. The stickies below the line are deleted scenes and notes to myself.

Whether you're a plotter or a pantser, the Storyboard may be just the tool you need to find and fix your story's hidden flaws. Try it! 

If making a Storyboard stresses you out, maybe this tool's not for you - and that's okay. But if  you have fun with this plotting tool, fantastic! Add it to your writing toolkit. 

Plot and plot, what is plot? *

Current Project: The Lazarus Equation (working title)
Status: Opening scenes


This month's suggested blog topic is uncannily appropriate for me to talk about right now. I'm still at that point in my writing where I'm searching for the right balance of plotting vs. "writing by the seat of my pants" or what some people refer to as being a "pantser". (I prefer to call it writing without a net)


If you had asked me whether I was a plotter or a pantser when I first starting writing with the goal of publication, I would have come down squarely on the side of being a plotter. I used to see that question as black or white, or as opposite sides of the same coin. Either one was a plotter or one was a pantser and that was that.

And then I found that the more I plotted a story, the less likely I was to want to actually, you know, write it. So I thought, well, I must be a pantser and set about jumping into story after story without any idea where they were going and, you guessed it, completely failing to finish any of them.


Now I tend to view the writing process as a spectrum with being a plotter at one end and a pantser at the other. I'm learning that I fall somewhere on that spectrum, with a mix of both approaches combining into a process that's uniquely my own. I just have to figure out where on the spectrum I'm happiest.


I know, for instance, that I'm afraid of getting bored if I've plotted out what's going to happen too far in advance of writing. However, I do want to know what's coming a few scenes ahead of where I'm at so that I can keep the momentum going. One tricky part comes in knowing how far ahead is too far.


I also like to know the ultimate goal and major turning points in the story. But not in too much detail. A lot of people say they can write an outline and still feel able to deviate from it. Not me. Oh, no. That would be too easy. No, when I put plot information on paper I tend to be stuck with it. I have to make my turning points and story goals sufficiently vague so that I can change them easily if needed without causing me grief, but with enough detail that I can write towards them. That's the other tricky part--how vague is vague enough without being too vague?


Well, I know my head hurts now--how about you?


Those tricky parts? They're what I'm still figuring out.


So, tell me about your process. It's the age old question for writers: Are you a plotter or a pantser or are you somewhere in between? Did figuring it out come easily to you, or did you struggle to find your process?


* The title of this post is a totally gratuitous and unrelated reference to "Spock's Brain," generally agreed to be one of if not the worst Star Trek (the original series) episode ever, in which the following immortal line is uttered, "Brain and brain, what is brain?"

Premise, Plotting, Writing

I wasn't going to ask a question this week because, Alice has dubbed me the question asker (LOL)- but after reading hers and Eli's comments on the Saturday check-in it made me wonder- What do you find the most difficult stage of a new project? Is it coming up with the premise or idea for a book, the plotting of the book, or the writing?

With everyone at different stages in their projects and listening to the concerns or problems they face- it made me wonder, just like everything else in writing, does each writer also find different stages of the writing more difficult than others and is it because of the genre they write, or just their own preference of getting the story on paper?

Myself, I love the research involved in writing the historical westerns. I don't have a problem coming up with a story premise/idea- but I tend to get frustrated with the plotting at times, but find the writing, once I get started flows fast and the story comes. With the contemporaries- the story idea comes and the plotting seems to fall into place, but the writing is harder. Not sure why, but I feel like a newbie writer every time I attempt contemporary.

So what is your genre and which of these do you feel you struggle more with Premise, Plot, or the writing? And why?