In My Evolution As a Writer...Plotting
Oct. 31st, 2005 09:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
queenoftheskiesThis is the current area in which I find myself evolving. It happened to me suddenly and rather drastically. I wasn't expecting it. I wasn't prepared for it.
I've known for a while that, if I expected to be a productive writer and make good use of the words that I write, I had to find a better method of writing.
I figured it would come much further in my writing timeline, but many things seem to have changed for me as far as my writing goes over the course of the past four or five months.
Maybe I'm taking it a lot more seriously, even though I'd always thought I took it seriously before.
As I look back toward this time a year ago, I'd already started trying to write every day. I was still down on my writing. I really wanted to finish something and edit and submit.
As noted in earlier posts, all those things have changed this year. They've changed a lot. I think for the better.
I have three series of novels under construction as well as several stand-alones. Last year, because I was working hot and heavy on the longest of the series, I'd work on one for a while, then switch to another, then to another. Partially because different sections affected each of the novels in one way or another. Partially because I was unfocused. So, I had many novels started. Only two (in a different series) finished.
This year, I knew I had to focus. I had to work on one at a time. I had to have a direction. I had to plan. Or I'd never really be a writer.
I've always had a beginning and an end in mind when I start to write. It's all those little points in the middle I haven't had committed to mind yet. I normally even have some big, turning point scenes in mind when I start, too.
I've almost always written out of order, which leads to some great spontaneous scenes, but also led me to great heartache and frustration and spinning of wheels.
I needed something more structured. I'd tried outlining many years ago and it didn't work for me. Like many people, I felt stifled and frustrated by it.
But, I really needed something to use as a road map, to help me through my story without taking the life out of it.
When I was screenwriting, a lady I knew, who taught screenwriting at Harvard, advocated writing down 10 plot points for each act in a screenplay. Key points that would guide the story. From those 30 plot points, she recommended writing a treatment.
So, that's what I started doing for my screenplays, and it worked remarkably well for me. I'd still do some spinning of wheels and agonize over more detailed plot points, but it was a starting point.
Over Labor Day weekend, with no prior warning at all, my brain decided that I was going to become an organized writer, whether I liked it or not.
While at breakfast, it began constructing a synopsis for a story that had been in my brain for sometime. No detail to it. Just a broad idea, which is where it all starts, and it's the basis for most of my series.
By the time I got home, I had an entire story in synopsis form. I plopped myself down at the computer and wrote it out all at one time. There it was. My story. I was amazed and decided, oh, my god, that was not what I'd expected, I loved it, it could be queried as stand-alone, if need be, and I was going to write it for NaNoWriMo.
Sometime later, maybe the same month, maybe this month, I had a dream. It came to me complete. It has to be written. It was an amazing story.
I got up, sat down at the computer, and wrote the entire plot out in synopsis form.
And, I realized that was the beginning of finding a structured way of plotting for me, that laid out my story in roadmap form, without stifling me. It allowed for changes, but the story was all there.
Earlier in the year, in order to finish a novel I already had started, I began listing scenes that still needed to be completed, and figuring where they went in the midst of scenes I'd already written. It helped me focus enough to finish the novel, but it also showed me that I'd been a fairly haphazard writer up to that point.
Yes, what I'd written was a complete story, and it could be polished and revised and probably end up okay. But, it had caused me a lot of heartache along the way and a lot of extra time finishing it up.
I wanted something more linear to work with. A more detailed road map that would guide me, lead me through my story while allowing me to develop important aspects as I went along.
So, I have combined the sceenplay method, the scene list method, and the synopsis method into something that I think might actually work for me.
For my NaNoWriMo project, Xanali, I started out with the synopsis I mentioned earlier. Because I wrote it two months ago, there was time for the story to develop in my head on its own without me forcing it or floundering as I start.
Whenever I'd go out or have some time, I'd take my writing notebook out and write down a few details, notes, odds and ends of what I wanted to write.
Then I thought maybe a listing of scenes would help me. I decided AGAINST that, though, because I think the development of scenes is a totally organic process. At least for me. And to try to list each and every scene would revert back to a type of outline strategy that would, in the end, keep me from writing and reduce my novel to something uninspired and bland. Possibly, it could be fixed. Possibly not.
So, I decided on plot points instead.
Someone asked me the difference between scenes and plot points.
For me, plot points are a more detailed listing of the story idea as developed from my synopsis. I'm getting down more details of my story, including some of the finer points, but NOT delegating the story to certain scenes.
I needed enough plot points to give me a detailed road map through my story without dictating to me the individual scenes I was to write. Those need to be spontaneous. I need to come at them cold from the perspective that I want the plot point to give me a flash image. I want my imagination to take it from there. Fill in the details, the descriptions, the emotions. And, if that part of the story needs some changing, do it so it flows out of what I've already written and into what I'm going to write next.
I'm long-winded. I admit it. So, I figured my novel would be at least 125,000 words. Since this one is more focused, I honestly think I can stick to a lower word count. I have my story firmly in hand. I don't have to experiment or flounder around looking for it.
I wrote plot points over the course of almost two months, though I admit the majority of them have been written over the past few weeks.
Giving my imagination that much breathing space allowed the story to develop organically. It was almost like writing the novel, only not so grand. On a much smaller scope.
I'd sit down with no clue of what was going to happen next, but as I plotted my story one point at a time, it miraculously unfolded...just like magic. I never once got stuck. I never floundered. I never wondered what should happen next. It all came together like it was meant to be together all along.
I ended up with 125 plot points, which was what I was secretly hoping for. Gives me an average of 1,000 words per plot point.
Will it end up that way? Heck, no. Some will have a few words, some will have many words. But, it gives me a feeling of control that I really like. I feel confident in this story, in this novel, and I seriously like the feeling of having control without inhibiting creativity.
Some plot points are one line. So and So dies.
Some plot points are much more detailed. So and So realizes this and does this and this is what happens it here's how it effects others and the outcome of what they've set out to do.
But, everything that happens is a point in the story that moves the story forward to the next.
Did I nitpick out every single little detail of the story? No. That's not the point. Creativity and imagination will fill those in as I write.
But, I do know the setting, the players, who is supposed to be where, what they're supposed to do, and when they're supposed to do it.
That leaves me much more organized to be creative without silently stressing what's going to happen next.
Knowing the full story ahead of time has given me a great love for it and an enormous anticipation as I get ready to write it.
I have fallen in love with the designing and plotting process as much as the writing process of this novel. It's such a wonderful change.
Will it work for future novels? Will I be able to make it work for everything I write?
I honestly don't know, but I hope so.
I'm sure going to give it a try and start working on plotting the novel I want to finish in December.
I've known for a while that, if I expected to be a productive writer and make good use of the words that I write, I had to find a better method of writing.
I figured it would come much further in my writing timeline, but many things seem to have changed for me as far as my writing goes over the course of the past four or five months.
Maybe I'm taking it a lot more seriously, even though I'd always thought I took it seriously before.
As I look back toward this time a year ago, I'd already started trying to write every day. I was still down on my writing. I really wanted to finish something and edit and submit.
As noted in earlier posts, all those things have changed this year. They've changed a lot. I think for the better.
I have three series of novels under construction as well as several stand-alones. Last year, because I was working hot and heavy on the longest of the series, I'd work on one for a while, then switch to another, then to another. Partially because different sections affected each of the novels in one way or another. Partially because I was unfocused. So, I had many novels started. Only two (in a different series) finished.
This year, I knew I had to focus. I had to work on one at a time. I had to have a direction. I had to plan. Or I'd never really be a writer.
I've always had a beginning and an end in mind when I start to write. It's all those little points in the middle I haven't had committed to mind yet. I normally even have some big, turning point scenes in mind when I start, too.
I've almost always written out of order, which leads to some great spontaneous scenes, but also led me to great heartache and frustration and spinning of wheels.
I needed something more structured. I'd tried outlining many years ago and it didn't work for me. Like many people, I felt stifled and frustrated by it.
But, I really needed something to use as a road map, to help me through my story without taking the life out of it.
When I was screenwriting, a lady I knew, who taught screenwriting at Harvard, advocated writing down 10 plot points for each act in a screenplay. Key points that would guide the story. From those 30 plot points, she recommended writing a treatment.
So, that's what I started doing for my screenplays, and it worked remarkably well for me. I'd still do some spinning of wheels and agonize over more detailed plot points, but it was a starting point.
Over Labor Day weekend, with no prior warning at all, my brain decided that I was going to become an organized writer, whether I liked it or not.
While at breakfast, it began constructing a synopsis for a story that had been in my brain for sometime. No detail to it. Just a broad idea, which is where it all starts, and it's the basis for most of my series.
By the time I got home, I had an entire story in synopsis form. I plopped myself down at the computer and wrote it out all at one time. There it was. My story. I was amazed and decided, oh, my god, that was not what I'd expected, I loved it, it could be queried as stand-alone, if need be, and I was going to write it for NaNoWriMo.
Sometime later, maybe the same month, maybe this month, I had a dream. It came to me complete. It has to be written. It was an amazing story.
I got up, sat down at the computer, and wrote the entire plot out in synopsis form.
And, I realized that was the beginning of finding a structured way of plotting for me, that laid out my story in roadmap form, without stifling me. It allowed for changes, but the story was all there.
Earlier in the year, in order to finish a novel I already had started, I began listing scenes that still needed to be completed, and figuring where they went in the midst of scenes I'd already written. It helped me focus enough to finish the novel, but it also showed me that I'd been a fairly haphazard writer up to that point.
Yes, what I'd written was a complete story, and it could be polished and revised and probably end up okay. But, it had caused me a lot of heartache along the way and a lot of extra time finishing it up.
I wanted something more linear to work with. A more detailed road map that would guide me, lead me through my story while allowing me to develop important aspects as I went along.
So, I have combined the sceenplay method, the scene list method, and the synopsis method into something that I think might actually work for me.
For my NaNoWriMo project, Xanali, I started out with the synopsis I mentioned earlier. Because I wrote it two months ago, there was time for the story to develop in my head on its own without me forcing it or floundering as I start.
Whenever I'd go out or have some time, I'd take my writing notebook out and write down a few details, notes, odds and ends of what I wanted to write.
Then I thought maybe a listing of scenes would help me. I decided AGAINST that, though, because I think the development of scenes is a totally organic process. At least for me. And to try to list each and every scene would revert back to a type of outline strategy that would, in the end, keep me from writing and reduce my novel to something uninspired and bland. Possibly, it could be fixed. Possibly not.
So, I decided on plot points instead.
Someone asked me the difference between scenes and plot points.
For me, plot points are a more detailed listing of the story idea as developed from my synopsis. I'm getting down more details of my story, including some of the finer points, but NOT delegating the story to certain scenes.
I needed enough plot points to give me a detailed road map through my story without dictating to me the individual scenes I was to write. Those need to be spontaneous. I need to come at them cold from the perspective that I want the plot point to give me a flash image. I want my imagination to take it from there. Fill in the details, the descriptions, the emotions. And, if that part of the story needs some changing, do it so it flows out of what I've already written and into what I'm going to write next.
I'm long-winded. I admit it. So, I figured my novel would be at least 125,000 words. Since this one is more focused, I honestly think I can stick to a lower word count. I have my story firmly in hand. I don't have to experiment or flounder around looking for it.
I wrote plot points over the course of almost two months, though I admit the majority of them have been written over the past few weeks.
Giving my imagination that much breathing space allowed the story to develop organically. It was almost like writing the novel, only not so grand. On a much smaller scope.
I'd sit down with no clue of what was going to happen next, but as I plotted my story one point at a time, it miraculously unfolded...just like magic. I never once got stuck. I never floundered. I never wondered what should happen next. It all came together like it was meant to be together all along.
I ended up with 125 plot points, which was what I was secretly hoping for. Gives me an average of 1,000 words per plot point.
Will it end up that way? Heck, no. Some will have a few words, some will have many words. But, it gives me a feeling of control that I really like. I feel confident in this story, in this novel, and I seriously like the feeling of having control without inhibiting creativity.
Some plot points are one line. So and So dies.
Some plot points are much more detailed. So and So realizes this and does this and this is what happens it here's how it effects others and the outcome of what they've set out to do.
But, everything that happens is a point in the story that moves the story forward to the next.
Did I nitpick out every single little detail of the story? No. That's not the point. Creativity and imagination will fill those in as I write.
But, I do know the setting, the players, who is supposed to be where, what they're supposed to do, and when they're supposed to do it.
That leaves me much more organized to be creative without silently stressing what's going to happen next.
Knowing the full story ahead of time has given me a great love for it and an enormous anticipation as I get ready to write it.
I have fallen in love with the designing and plotting process as much as the writing process of this novel. It's such a wonderful change.
Will it work for future novels? Will I be able to make it work for everything I write?
I honestly don't know, but I hope so.
I'm sure going to give it a try and start working on plotting the novel I want to finish in December.
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-31 07:17 pm (UTC)Err...I HOPE you mean "words"...
no subject
Date: 2005-10-31 07:18 pm (UTC)I shall go change it. Thanks for pointing it out!
no subject
Date: 2005-10-31 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-31 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-31 08:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-01 05:18 am (UTC)Next novel I'd like to be more organic. Your idea of plot points and synopsis sounds like a good idea.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-01 06:13 am (UTC)