Hmm. I'm reading up on plotting. becasue I don't do it. And if I'm to attempt a longer piece of work (like now, when Im feeling brave but don't tell anyone) then I must learn how to plot.

There seem to be so many ways of approaching this beast in ways that suit the intuitive writer.

Anyone have any advice here?

vanessa

Whatever you plan, do it in pencil, so that you know you'll only biro it in when you've actually written it. Then start out headed in that direction, but be prepared to follow side roads if they look promising, rubbing out and re-pencilling the as-yet-unwritten plot as seen from the new road.

Emma

Thanks Emma. Do you mean lists of thoughts, linear fashion, or diagrams? I tried mind mapping once and it was useful... now I haven't got the software.

vanessa

Well for the plot I do a big chart, with the rows as the chapters, and the columns as the different threads of the story - probably one for each character, but also plotting, say, what the reader discovers about the past (which is usually a big part of the driving force of my fiction). Or which of a set of letters appear when, or a series of nightmares, or whatever. I fill that in in pencil - spacing out the thread I'm clearest about, and then distributing my ideas for the other threads in suitable places. Only a few words per box, and lots of things I haven't filled in when I start writing. I also do a lot of rubbing-out and re-writing and re-arranging, which is why it's all in pencil. Once I've written a chapter I biro in what ended up in it, and I've got a reference for what's where in later revisions. And there's always tippex if I really change my mind.

It all sounds terribly anal, but it's actually very liberating, because you can then shoot off in any direction that appeals, knowing that you're still anchored. And I do it all in pencil, and

I know there are programs out there, but I've always done all my planning with pencil and paper. Some things I've found find useful for clarifying things without tying myself down are:

A spider diagram of the main characters, with lines between them plotting their connections ('hates' 'like a father to' 'business partner' 'lives with reluctantly'.

A very spidery map of the different houses and important places: it can make a difference if the characters have to drive past an ex-husbands house to get to their special romantic place, say.

A list of the abstract themes, just to keep them in the forefront of my mind so I bring them out when I can: the current one says Storytelling, Foster Parents, Alchemy, Pilgrimage, Sanctuary, Position vs. Trajectory. Sometimes this turns into a spider diagram if I start realising connexions between what I thought were discrete ideas.

I don't usually do huge character-profiles, but as I go I may well find I want a list of the characters and their version of some particular characteristic - anything from what car they each drive to what good and bad things they brought from the family they've all grown up in.

Monster spreadsheet of everybody's ages for the whole time-span of the novel. I tend to write things about unpicking the past, and it's incredibly boring to re-invent the wheel each time I need to know if X would have left school when Y retired. This I do keep on the computer, so I can re-do it and see the consequences if I realise I need to change someone's age.

Emma

It all sounds terribly anal, but it's actually very liberating

- I so agree. I'd hate to carry the weight of not knowing where I was going in a novel.

So I have a line on which I jot the main points of my plot, the barest bones, and then I fill in more detail when I've investigated my characters (see Anna Reynold's last thread). And yes, I do think you have to have some sort of time-line of characters' ages if you're going to dip into their pasts and family trees.

I'm only working on my first novel atm, so am hardly an expert, but will tell you how I came up with my plot. When writing short stories I didn't plot, and let it grow intuitively (like you?). But I knew I needed to have some sort of plot when I embarked on the novel.

I decide to write a list of my obsessions - my hobby horses, things which get me going, things which appall or fascinate me etc. The kind of thing which would draw me towards a piece of fiction or a documentary, or into a conversation. The things I feel passionate about in some way. So it could be adoption, local politics, magic, the power of lust... whatever really. I think I pinpointed about 7 obsessions.

Then I brainstormed daily for weeks for plots based around these obsessions - that linked several of them in a coherent way. Every day I wrote a plot idea down that I thought was quite good, and by the following day I'd gone off it, so tried again. Eventually, after about 5 weeks, I came up with a plot which I didn't go off, and more than a year later I still haven't gone off it.

I haven't plotted as meticulously as Emma by a long chalk, but I know all the major developments of the plot and how they happen, so I can improvise a little in between those so long as I reach each marker - a bit like going on a treasure hunt where you have to pass through London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Chester, Barrow in Furness, and Cambridge, but you can decide the exact route between them as you go.

I can't say yet whether this will turn out to have worked, but it's certainly working for me atm. Just thought I'd pass it on FWIW.

Deb

Nessie, can I go against the weight of opinion and say, don't feel you have to do it? You call yourself an intuitive writer - stick with that if it works for you. I never have a plot worked out, I just have characters and an initial situation of conflict and then I just write and see where the characters take me. I might have a few big things in mind that coud happen - but often by the time I get there they don't happen because by then I know my characters just wouldn't act that way. I just write, keep tossing in events and more situations of conflict, and then stir the pot and see what happens.

Rosy.

That's a good point. There are lots of shades of plotting, some less "cross-hatched" than others. It's a spectrum.

And relatedly, aren't all writers intuitive? I'm not sure plotting and being intuitive are being set up in opposition.

Am in the midst of plotting right now, and for the first time and using a massive "physical" plan spread out on the dining room table.

I'm working in parallel narrative, so have two long rows spanning the length of the table - one for each character - and each row is made up of a series of points (character's background, character's themes/goal, character's allies, character's enemies, character's crisis, turning point, character's resolution). Lots of post-it notes and scribbled/typed ideas collected over the last few months, each finding a space to slot in. It's great to be able to "see" the novel all at once - helps so much with shaping the plot and seeing new possibilities for connections between storylines...

I like Emma's idea about having a row for each chapter, but I'm not yet at the chapter stage. Am just about to start applying the W chart, though (character begins at left-hand starting point on the W - at this stage he/she "wants" something - then encounters the first failure/struggle at the first low point of the W...recovers, but in recovering encounters a second, worse low point (the second bottom "point" on the W), and eventually finds resolution (where the W tails up again). Very difficult to explain without being able to draw the chart itself, but it's a good, general way to see the outline of a character's development.

<Added>

ugh, typos...that second "and" should be an "am"...

You call yourself an intuitive writer - stick with that if it works for you. I never have a plot worked out, I just have characters and an initial situation of conflict and then I just write and see where the characters take me. I might have a few big things in mind that coud happen - but often by the time I get there they don't happen because by then I know my characters just wouldn't act that way. I just write, keep tossing in events and more situations of conflict, and then stir the pot and see what happens.

Yes!
FWIW, I start with the characters, think about what kind of person they are and invent a bit of backstory to explain why they are that kind of person (I may or may not write this backstory into the piece, but I know its there anyway). I put the characters in a situation, and then I see what happens.

Or I put my characters into an ending - and then write the rest to find out how they got there.

I usually do plot diagrams and maps at the end of a first draft. I can see what I'm interested in, what the themes are, and what I want to do with the characters. Then its just a case of making notes about what I want to cut, rearrange or add in order to make the plot make sense and have some drive.

Hope this helps

B

but I'm not yet at the chapter stage.

That's interesting, because for me chapters are the building blocks. Deb - you asked me about the 'change' point in a scene, and for me a chapter is like a big, composite scene - it has an arc from beginning to end.

But I really don't do it as precisely as I see it looks as if I do. I only discovered the main event of the end of the book - the climax, really - when I was about half-way through the first draft.

Emma

That's interesting, because for me chapters are the building blocks.

I find that I need to develop the overall arc of a character's development before I can begin "dividing" it into chapters. But then, the pivotal moments that I come up with tend to indicate the rough breakup into chapter form...

Have uploaded a photo of my dining room table on my showcase page. Strange that it's come out all pixely, but you get the idea. There's order to the madness - honest!

Really interesting responses. Thank you everyone.

Lammi... having researched this for a couple of days on the net, it seems that we all have different balances of working methods depending on personality to a large extent.

So, I gather, on occasion, all writers can free-write, all can plot rigorously, and so on. But we all lean towards one type of working more then others. (That is a GROSS oversimplification of the research, by the way!)

Those who naturally lean towards the intuitive stuff, find it hard to plot... that seems to be fairly widely recognised, wherever I look. (I googled 'intuitive writers' and 'plotting' by the way. fascinating wehat you find!)

Its a very diferent thing, I guess, writing freeflow for a short piece, and expecting the same method to work for something twenty or thirty times as long.

So this writer, who is very freeflow, is finding it hard to sort out in her head how best to approach the great oeuvre!

I think the idea of diagrams, spiderplans and so forth is exciting. Ive tried that once, and will do so again.

vanessa

You do have to find out what works for you, and the way to learn how to write novels is to write them. I served an apprenticeship of 40K, 25K and 80K texts before I wrote TBMH. I've since written five more full length adult novels, and I refine my working methods each time. In fact, have just discovered Post-It tabs - oh, the joy!

Yes, I'd free-write for something shorter, just the loosest of ideas, and no idea where they'd lead. But I can't do it for novels, because at there are too many junctions too often with too many roads leading off them, and I need reasons to chose one rather than another...

Emma