I've read some successful novelists (Stephen King is the only one I can think of off the top of my head) don't do much plotting. They rely on putting characters together in a given situation and then seeing what happens next. This approach, apparently, makes your novel sound more natural whereas heavy plotting sounds more laboured.

That makes perfect sense. But my genre is crime and thriller where details are often paramount. Isn't plot crucial here? Where would a master like Michael Crichton without plot and research (take a look at the Bibliographies at the back of his books)?

What are your thoughts and approaches? Can you research and plot and still make your story seem natural? How do you strike a balance (if there is one)? Does it mainly depend on genre?

As a side point, do you generally know how your novel will end when your start it or are in the early stages or does it come to you later?

This approach, apparently, makes your novel sound more natural whereas heavy plotting sounds more laboured.

I don't think you can be so definitive. Some novelists plot a lot, some don't, but I don't think you can tell which method was used when you're reading a book.

Starting with a scenario or question - what kind of a person would do X? - can be useful because then your plot and character can grow together. So for my current, I asked: 'What kind of a man would leave his wife because she was disabled?' Then I imagined where his life would go from the point where he left her, and how the experience, the guilt, would affect him, and how successfully he'd be able to make a new life for himself. Plot and character happened at the same time, and I was able then to get the bones in place before I set off.

Kate, that sounds a really interesting plot!

DrQuincy, I don't know who told you that plotted novels can seem laboured, since from what I've heard most novels are plotted to some extent. Some writers like to plot every last fine detail before they write, a minority don't plot at all (but I've heard that can lead to lots of blind alleys and wasted time), but I think most do something in between - something which definitely counts as plotting.

If you're writing a crime thriller I'd have thought plotting was pretty much essential, TBH.

I used to wing it when writing short stories - just see where it took me, and then shape it. But those where shorts of about 3000 words or less. When I embarked on my novel I felt that approach just wouldn't work for me for a much longer piece. Writing and writing till you have 85,000 words does not necessarily mean you have a novel IMO. It has to have shape and structure and hang together, and that's going to be far harder to do if you don't do any plotting whatsoever.

What stage are you at with yours, and have you done any plotting so far?

Deb

I need a basic plot or I risk getting lost. I use the plot as a skeletal framework and then build around it. Spontaneous things often occur anyway, but I have my road map, and know where I'm headed.

JB

I've always been one of the ‘put two characters in a scene and watch what they do’ brigade… which is, no doubt, the reason I've just had to do a massive restructure on TWH. Never again. From now on, I'm going to do some minimal plotting – nothing too heavy or restrictive, but just enough to get the structure right. So I’ll probably give your suggestion a go, Kate. Thanks for that

Research is a different matter. I do a lot of research both before I start and as I'm going along. The secret with research is to do enough, so that your story and characters are believable, but not to let it show. Factual errors and huge info dumps make me want to throw a book across the room. Do the research but keep it out of the story.

Dee

Yes, I need a basic plot, and I usually know from the beginning where I think I want my characters to end - such plotting as I do is about working out the arc of the action from A to Z. But it's all in pencil, actually and metaphorically, and a lot of rubbing out and rearranging goes on.

Don't know how helpful an analogy this is for people on this thread, but it's a bit like looking after small children. On one hand, the day works better if you make sure there's food they like available when you're expecting them to be hungry, and they can sleep at their usual time, and you get on with the washing so there are clean clothes for tomorrow. But on the other hand you need to drop everything and go to the park if the sun comes out, and not be thrown if they suddenly sleep for four hours because they're sickening for something, and abandon washing the floor if they're seized with a desire to dress you up and make you join in with their game. Unfortunately most of us are better at one style than the other... Fortunately, when it comes to novels, you can rewrite them.

Emma

Interesting points so far, thanks!

Deb, as I am now I have all the main characters outlined and know the protagonist very well; I have a good idea of the basic plot (each of the murders and why they're done). I have the locations firm in my mind and have a good idea how it will end (although I'm willing to change anything should my characters want to). Basically now I'm just reading up on some of the facts and figures as it's a very technical novel (again I'll mention Michael Crichton) and also crime. Should I just start writing and do the research as I go along?

I know that very technical novels have particular demands, but hist fic has some of the same problems and risks. I try quite hard to avoid doing research while I'm writing the first draft, for htes reasons. Doing research as one goes along seems efficient, (and there may be moments when you realise you absolutely have to find something out before you can move on with the plot) but the risk is always that it's less well-digested than research you've done before, and sits in a lump of info-dump in the middle of your writing. Personally, I research before for general things to make sure my idea for my story will work and for the flavour and geography of the main settings. After I've written the first draft I have a big list of things to find out: technical stuff and local colour and anything I didn't know I needed at the time. But the first draft I write as much as possible without stopping.

Emma

DrQuincy, I have always avoided writing anything which involves any more than minimal research, so can't comment on that, but what you say you've planned already - the characters and plot skeleton - sounds about the level of plotting which I'm finding is working for me.

I don't want to plan every last detail so it's too rigid, since I want it to breathe -but I have a roadmap (good term, JB). I know which road I'm taking, and I know when to turn off, and which village to travel through, but I'm not yet sure what the cottages look like, what kind of hedgerow there will be on each road, or when I'll have to stop for petrol (to use a rather heavy-handed analogy - sorry!).

Deb

But my genre is crime and thriller where details are often paramount. Isn't plot crucial here?

Yes.

Should I just start writing and do the research as I go along?

Yes.


Sounds like you have done enough to get started, Quincy. Often the trouble with too much plotting is it allows you to procrastinate, and not actually get down to writing. Also if you are writing you can keep the research to a minimum - a 'need to know' basis - rather than getting swamped with detail, 90% of which you'll never use.

Anyway, just that's my personal opinion

- NaomiM

In a conversation with my editor on Friday (the one during which she explained to me why my latest book is unsellable crap) she said something about this I found interesting. She said, 'Nobody ever fell in love with a book because of its plot. It's always the characters that make you love and remember a book.'

Is this true? And even if it is (as I think it may well be) in commercial women's fiction, is it true across the board - and especially in crime fiction?

Rosy

I think even in crime fiction there has to be something powerfully appealing in some way about the detective, even if most of the others you don't give two hoots about. I'm not sure 'in love with' is quite the right phrase, but you do need to care. And at least some of them do have to be compelling enough, and - most important - their motivations have to be well-drawn enough to keep the plot moving and you turning the pages.

Emma

Isn't it true that identification with characters is the key to making people care about your story, whether novel, film or whatever? For most readers/viewers, at least. My husband never identifies with characters, but I think he's unusual.

Deb

It might well be a gender thing deb.
Woman prefer to empathise with the mc, so character development is important, whereas men prefer tight plotting and lots of detail about gadgets and proceedure (police, military etc), so the story is everything. A lot of thrillers are strong on motivation, but over and above that the character is pretty poorly sketched.

- NaomiM

If you wanted to be really, really crude and reductive about it, I'd say that the chief motor of 'men's' fiction is physical action, and of 'women's' fiction emotional action. The function of the main character/s in either is to be the reader's representative in the story, so that we experience the story through them. We need to identify with them, but, again, whether how much of that identification is physical and how much emotional is going to vary. And though 'falling in love' with the characters may be a girly thing, boys need to feel that identification with the MC too, though most of them would run a mile if you said it was the same as falling in love...

Emma

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What I'm saying I think is that identification is the key, whether it's an emotional connection or a physical one.