Can anyone recommend a cracking book devoted to plotting a novel?

Be grateful for any suggestions.

Take care
Andrea

Andrea, there are so many books that touch on plot as part of general writing guides. I’ve had a trawl through my teetering pile of How-To books and the only specific one I found was How To Plot Your Novel by Jean Saunders. (ISBN 0749003081) It’s a long time since I read it but I seem to remember it was useful.

How To Write Damned Good Fiction by James N. Frey (ISBN 0333907590) has a good section on plotting, going from the opening situation through various stages of conflict to the climax and final resolution. He’s also written one called How To Write A Damned Good Novel which has had excellent reviews, although I haven’t read it myself.

One of the most helpful books I have is The Writer’s Digest Handbook of Novel Writing (ISBN 0898798310). It’s a collection of advice from about thirty writers and writing teachers. It’s great to dip into when you feel in need of practical help, and it has several chapters on plotting.

Hope this helps

Dee
x

Looks like you've hit the same wall I have. I've got the broad storyline, and the relationship of the characters, but the actual journeyman craft of plotting the thing out scene by scene is a curse. I'm struggling with one now called "Novel Writing", by a novelist and agent called Evan Marshall who has it broken right down to the very atoms, with the number of scenes for the varying lenths of novels, jumping from lead plot to subplot etc;. I was excited about it when I started reading it, but as I've progressed it occurs to me what a completely soulless undertaking this can be. The deeper into the whole thing I get, the more it occurs to me that in the end, this is something each person has to work out for themselves. Whatever gets you through the manuscript.

FX

You’re right in one sense, FX. We should all work to a system that suits our own styles.

I’ve tried plotting and I can’t do it. I just start out with a couple of characters, a setting and a rough idea of what I want to happen by the end. It’s sometimes a white-water ride but it’s the only way I can do it.

Nevertheless, novels do need a structure. Ideally they should have a scene-setting opening, a series of escalating conflicts, a resolution and a satisfying wrap-up at the end. There you go – it’s simple… pass the brandy someone…

xx

Dee,

Thanks for those suggestions - I have a James Frey, but I don't think the one you mentioned (seem to remember it has a II after the title); will look out the Jean Saunders and the Writer's Digest.

FX,

I'll look out the Evan Marshall book - I wonder if it's something it's a good idea to read, to get a rough idea in your head, but then not to keep open while you plot? Otherwise, I can imagine it's a bit like painting a fence ...

I too have a rough plot, but can't remember how I've previously translated that into a narrative string of scenes. Am being attacked by the collywobbles, and think perhaps I need to be clearer therefore. Must remind myself I've done it before and I'll manage it again .....

I have it in mind I am only going to plot to about 3/4 of the way through, so at the point where the strands have come together I don't have a prescriptive end in mind; in theory, that means I can let the book I've created reach it's own natural conclusion.

Could of course be total bobbins

Thanks again

Take care
Andrea

I was having a look at my bookshelves to see if there was anything I could suggest, and there were books on characterisation, on editing, on getting published, but nothing on how to plot your novel. I realised most of the stuff I have read on plotting has been online, in articles and forums like this, which is not very helpful.

It's one of these horrible things where there is no 'right' way of doing it. Whatever works for you is the right way.

FX, I would suggest that if you are finding what you are doing 'a curse' then it's not the right way for you. It has to feel natural.

Cas

Hi

John Gardner's 'The Art of Fiction' ISBN 0-679-73403-1
is worth a read, although it can get a little academic and heavy at times. But worth the effort, I think. ( I should add, though, it is not just about 'plotting', so may not exactly fit the need.)

This question of how much you should - or shouldn't - plot out the novel (and to what level of detail) before you even start writing is one that has been discussed within the forums many times. And as has already been suggested, there is no rule - at least, no rule that is unbreakable.

Apart from the rule that says - do what works for you. Not too helpful, because it will almost certainly mean trying several methods until you find the one that 'works for you.'

In any case, good luck. And I look forward to reading the reasults of your labours!

All the best

jumbo

When I was writing a novel and nothing much had happened by chapter three I was moaning to a colleague, who also happened to be a writer. His advice? 'Start a fire!' I was desperate, so I did - and it worked. Apart from the fire itself, which livened things up and allowed the characters to show themselves reacting to a crisis, there was a whole train of consequences, as well as causes, which had to be explored. I can't say that was the end of my problems with the novel - it failed for other reasons - but I have always been grateful for the advice. I suppose any sudden, dramatic action would have the same effect.

Sheila

This isn't too helpfull, but my favourite 'craft' book has ten commandments of good writing; one being.

"Thou shalt not drop thy characters into pre-concieved plots lest thou will produce hack work."


As I said, not too helpfull, but in a perfect world of rounded three dimensional characters, pretty much spot on.

That was from Sol Stein's 'On Writing'

Apparently he used to edit Dylan Thomas. A stange concept in itself.

Darryl

I don't think one fire counts as a pre-conceived plot, but I can appreciate, to a degree, the general rule. What my fire-advocate meant, I think, was that most characters, left to themselves, would continue their lives of quiet desperation with nothing much at all to shake them up or give an opportunity for development.

By coincidence I recently leafed through a book by Sol Stein in my local Ottakers, attracted by the title. It was called 'Solutions for Writers',(2003, Souvenir Press) and seemed very helpful.I hadn't heard of him before but he worked for years as an editor with many successful authors, besides Dylan Thomas. I think there was a chapter on plotting.

Plotting is a big feature of 'NewNovelist' the disk, but it seems very complicated and I have abandoned it pro tem.

For character-led plotting an intriguing approach is described in '45 Master Characters;Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters' by Vicoria Lynn Schmidt, (2001, Writers' Digest Books, US) It has two chapters about plotting: 'Plotting the Maculine Journey', and 'Plotting the Feminine Journey'; off-puttingly formulaic, but the characters in the book are all archetypes from Greek myths, so perhaps not surprising.

Didn't I read somewhere there are only ten basic plots?

Sheila

Cath

I think that number varies between 7 and 35 dependng on which 'authority' you happen to be reading at the time.

jumbo

Regarding plot, I think there are different approaches you can take depending on the kind of story you're writing. But in general, I'm a fan of having a strong feel for how the story will end, coupled with knowing who your main point-of-empathy character is, having a rough idea of the direction the story will take – then just taking off with the writing. In other words, you want enough structure that the whole thing doesn't fall apart – yes, there's always re-writing, but you don't want to have to re-build essential foundations – and enough slack so that the writing can take unexpected twists and turns (unexpected to the writer as well as the reader).

With my creative writing tutor hat on, I tend to advise on working out a plot structure beforehand, but this is because an amazing number of writers actually produce a whole novel without any plot at all. Most readers want to know that there will be a story shape – beginning, middle and end – and usually don't mind even if that shape is predictable. What they most want is magical interactions between the characters, twists and turns along the way, maybe a message or two but organically delivered within the story, and on the whole for the main characters to have changed in the process – in the way that we all wish we could change in our own lives if only they had more structure to them!

Terry

Sheila,

I would agree that one fire doesn't constitute a pre-conceived plot.

I think it may be a case of semantics.

For me, I tend to imagine unhappy characters being forced do certain things just because it's in the plot. Others may approach the concept differently.

For me, all the most memorable peices I've read stay with me because of the characters, not the plot or any story twist.

Many years ago I watched a BBC adaptation of Tenesee Willimas's 'A Glass Menagerie.' I though it was fascinating, but if someone asked me what happened in it, the answer would be, 'not a lot' it was just basic human interaction. Fascinating all the same.

Just me rambling on now.

Darryl

Oh, yes, I agree about remembering characters. I sometimes found myself thinking Tennessee Williams was lucky, being surrounded by all those overblown and twisted characters, the perfect raw material for melodrama. I thought this about 'Cat on a Hot Tin Roof' when I had to teach it.I was reminded of the way that plot can seem follow automatically from character, when I watched 'Written on the Wind', the Douglas Sirk melodrama, last night. It didn't seem entirely likely that the Lauren Bacall character would be so easily taken in at the start by Robert Stack's reformed playboy,but as the story unfolded one had more and more the sense of impending crisis.Another good film I saw recently, which made the same point, was 'Sideways', where two men of very different character set off on a holiday in the Californian vineyards. Their interaction, played out within a dating scenario, made up almost all of the plot interest.

I have an idea for a novel I'm exporing at the moment, where I know the beginning and I know the end, which makes it more encouraging to write the middle bits. I will upload the first chapter when I am happier with it.

However, I'm wrestling with material I brought back from China. Have more or less ordered it chronologically, I realise it will work better as a series of articles under topic headings. Fortunately I have already sorted this out, to some extent, because even chronologically there might be as many as 30 separate episodes to each month's events and I have labelled them for convenience of editing.They just need gathering together and re-editing. It could be written as a novel, with the beginning and the end already known, but I would have to introduce some more dramatic events. The Sol Stein book I mentioned have some good advice about using fiction techniques in factual writing, and that got me thinking why not turn the whole thing into fiction? I wonder what the rules are for using the same material in several different genres?

Sheila

Anj

I have on the shelf - Writing a book that makes a difference by Philip Gerard. I look though it often, very helpful.

dolores