I have what I imagine might be a common problem, whenever I'm trying to develop a bare-bones outline for a plot. I know that I should keep things as simple as possible, so as to be able to see the overall shape of the story while I'm developing the idea. However, I find that, as I devise each turn in the plot, I often get bogged down with unnecessary detail about how the story evolves and what the characters do. The result, instead of being a plot overview, is often more like a highly abridged version of the story, and it's often difficult to complete the development because of ending up with something that's too complicated for me to see clearly in overview.

How do other people approach this? Is there a way of keeping to the barest essentials, when trying to develop the overall shape of the plot? Does anyone have any favourite tools or techniques that they use?

Alex

You might find the 'Snowflake Method' interesting.

http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php

Nothing is suitable for all projects, but this is quite useful for forcing the brain to get to the heart of the matter first, before developing a well-defined structure. Obviously, you can go down to any level of detail you like in preparing a plot. The problem is being potentially unable to see the wood for the trees. The Snowflake Method is particularly helpful in that scenario, because it forces you to work the right way around - to decide upon the succinct summary statement for each bit before allowing the detail to proliferate.

Even when you've already produced an actual draft of the book itself, this can be helpful for sorting out what's wrong with it!

However, I believe things like this should always be used as a tool rather than as a formulaic approach to be imposed arbitrarily. I am a little wary of the method's recommendations for the characters, but as regards working out the plot it has much to offer.

Chris

Yes - a bit like the snowflake is the W diagram, wherein you draw a big W on a sheet of A4 and use it to map the main crisis/climax points of the story. Start at the top left, where the W begins: this is your opening situation. Travel down to the first trough (the first 'point' in the W): that's your original conflict, the thing that sets the narrative on its course. The rise in the middle represents a brief recovery, and the middle peak of the W is the moment when it seems that things are going to be ok. But then there's a second - perhaps more significant - rug-pulling moment (the second dip in the W) before things resolve at the top-right corner.

It's very, very simplistic, of course, but can be a good way of identifying the most basic shape of your MC's journey and/or the narrative as a whole.

Yes, I haven't tried the Snowflake thing, but I looked at it and it was very interesting - it reflects quite closely the way I think about plot.

When I'm setting out the formal plan - which is quite skeletal by some people's standards, and positively lavish by others' (see here, anyone who's interested and hasn't yet encountered my blog post about the plotting grid) - I do sometimes get more detailed ideas about how a scene might go. If I want to remember them, I make separate notes about whatever occurs to me. That way I don't worry I might forget them, but the skeleton stays skeletal.

No doubt something like Scrivener would help, but I'm a backs-of-old-MS-and-biro creature at heart...

No doubt something like Scrivener would help

It does - it's exactly what I was using when I made the posting, and what I've used to follow the advice here. The advice has worked, and I now believe I have a viable plot outline (partly through the clarity I got from starting from scratch with a snowflake approach, and partly through inspiration from what I'd already written).

I had a break-through with this problem just recently and two things occur to me as a result.

Firstly, writing is the wrong tool for this particular job. No-one ever designed such a complex structure as a novel with a sequence of small descriptive passages. Can you imagine the architect's design if it done as text? It would be mad. And impossible to follow. Even software designers turn to graphics when creating complex systems.

A novel is a complex system so the only way of knitting the parts together that makes sense, is with a diagram. Draw it. It doesn't matter if you can't draw (indeed, that skill might well be a hindrance), because you are creating a diagram not a work of art.

I use a method that has each main scene as a box. Boxes (scenes) are linked together and coloured. Each connector is explained (how we get from the opening scene to the inciting incident, etc...) and if I have ideas about a scene as I go along I can note them by the box (smaller and less prominent). Colours code the plot-subplot etc.

You might like to use mind-maps or story boards or just pen and ink but for me, leaving writing aside and creating a diagram was an epiphany. It is SO much easier.

This makes sense to me because of my amateur understanding of our brains functioning. It is said that we can only hold between 5 and 9 'pieces' of information in our memory at any one time. Novel writing bears this out. It is SO hard to keep all the elements of a plot in mind. So? Well then, don't let it be so hard. Make it a diagram and you don't have to keep the elements in mind.. you can see them!

And to answer your question, so long as the main scenes are in big, bold boxes and the minor scenes in small ones you will always be able to see the skeleton story at-a-glance!