What happens next? - Plotting and Planning

Okay, so you've got this amazing idea for a book and you dive right in and write until you run out of go. Then what?

You put it in a metaphorical drawer (usually a file on your computer) and forget about it? You leave it open on the desktop and worry about it? You come back to it each day, but don't write more than a few lines? You start to add to it, but it flounders because you aren't really sure where it's going? All writers have this problem - the story that's going nowhere. The story that's long on idea, but short on execution. You move on to the next idea. You might repeat yourself in an endless cycle of false starts. I know I have.

These days though, I finish everything I write - good, bad or indifferent - because finishing something allows me to move on properly.

Here's how I write now. I get a good idea, or at least what I think is a good idea, and I immediately pose it as a 'what if' question. For The Finish it was 'what if an 18th century prostitute woke to find a dead man in her bed?'

Then I think how will this look as the start of a book? What is she doing? Where is she doing it?

Next up I go straight to the end. What's happened by the end of the book? Has she survived? Has the situation resolved itself? If so, how?

Having envisaged the opening scene and the end scene, I decide which characters will aid her progress and which will cause problems. In Kitty's case it's fairly simple - without giving you the end, I need her to survive because she features in three more books. However, the situation is dire, with the possibility of hanging, if she is brought to trial and found guilty of murder. She lives in a brothel so we have the madam, Mother Shadbolt, and various other prostitutes. We also have a number of clients and the 'bully' on the door. A detective story is plot driven, as the character moves from one set of clues to the next. By its very nature it also requires twists and turns. A good 'who dun it' shouldn't give up the actual murderer easily. It should make the reader think.

All this said, any story can follow this kind of development plan. From beginning to end and join up the points inbetween.

Some people can write straight through, from idea to actuality. That's how I work, but I can only do it because, having been trained in scriptwriting for film, I've internalised the process and format. Some people need to map it all out. I would say, for safety's sake make lots of notes and plan, plan, plan.

Here's some bullet points to help you plot.

1. Have a great hook and make sure it's in the first five pages.
2. Establish the character's goal in the first quarter of the book.
3. Establish all the major characters in the first quarter of the book.
4. Know how your book is going to end.
5. Know what it is that will happen at the end of the first quarter that will propel the character forward into resolving the matter at hand.
6. Chart out the important points of the story on a timeline, taking caring to consider rising action.
7. Know what it is that will happen at the end of the third quarter that will begin to work towards the end of the story.
8. At the end, tie up all the loose ends - explain red herrings

Find The Finish here

Tips for novelists, from a scriptwriter's toolkit. Part Two - plots

In the first part of this article I talked about why the best stories are archetypes, and where those archetypes came from. This time I want to talk about types of plot. Some people will argue there are 22 plots. Some will argue there are 36. Some, that there are 7. I am here to tell you that there is only one.

 The way I look at it is that every single story, no matter what it is, is a quest: a quest find true love, a quest to find the criminal, to escape from a desert island, to find the perfect recipe, to reveal the ghost, to travel across the country. It doesn't matter what the theme of your story is, the plot is a quest. Once you realise this then you can work out the various aspects accordingly. Writers get so hung up on fitting their story into one of the 22 or 36 or 7 types (or however many plots is the favourite number this week) that they end up confused and struggling to fit it into any kind of a plot. Couple this with the idea that novelists always seem to have, that they don't really need to know their characters, and that what they are actually doing is waiting for them to reveal themselves on the page, and you have a recipe for disaster.

Fact is, it is absolutely imperative that you know everything there is to know about your characters. Scriptwriters learn very early on in their 'training' that you have to do this, otherwise you cannot play out your story to its full potential. Then, there are all the others aspects of your story to take into consideration. For instance, will it be a slow burner, or will you leap straight into the action? Will it be plot led or character led? (If you can, make it both.) Have you worked out the beginning, and the end? Do you know which of your characters will carry the story, or will it be an ensemble piece? What's the location and era? Will it be first person or third? Past or present tense? Do you want it to be a page turner? Will it be action packed, or a drawn out emotive tale? All these aspects, and many more, must be carefully considered before you put pen to paper...or rather, these days, fingers to keyboard.

The thing is though, you don't need to worry about all the different types of plot there might be, if you just keep in mind that there is only one plot, and in fact, no matter the theme of that one plot, it is actually only about one thing. That one thing is survival. Everything in our life is about survival. So, if we are looking for the perfect partner, its about our survival in a potential relationship. If we are hoping to sail across the Atlantic, it's about whether we will survive that journey. If we are planning the perfect crime, it's about whether we will survive to commit more crimes (or end up in prison). Catch my drift?

Now, it may well be that you think I have over simplified things, but I assure you,you can throw stories at me until you are blue in the face, but I will show you how it fits this model. Scriptwriters know all these things because scripts are very carefully designed stories that model archtypes. Even those who argue otherwise, and attempt to write scripts outside the format, unconsciously conform. Even those scripts for stories that challenge everything we know about storytelling. This says a lot about how the human mind craves completion, and satisfaction.

More soon.