Write Every Day Part 6 :Plotting

Plotting is always a hot topic when authors get together. Some like to write off the seat of their pants (often called ‘pantsers’) while others cite plotting as crucial to their writing process.

It’s certainly easier to write every day and to write quickly if you have at least an idea of what it is you need to achieve that day. Even just having an outline of the main plot points makes a difference.

It is possible to write successfully without any plotting whatsoever, and there are some prolific writers who are ‘pantsers’, but I would not recommend it.

Benefits of Plotting

Having a plot will inspire you to write every day. It will also give your writing a structure. Even if you don’t write sequentially, from Chapter One to The End (and very few of us do!), having the bare bones of an outline will allow you to hop from one scene to another without getting into a muddle.

Not having a plot of any kind will significantly slow down your writing. I know it’s difficult to take the time to plan ahead when all you want to do is write, but believe me, the days you take to plan and plot will reap huge benefits later on. And you can count this plotting time as writing time – just like you can the time you are editing.

Plotting Is Brainstorming

Don’t look at plotting as some boring pre-writing chore, like something you had to do at school or college. Look at it as the most exciting kind of brainstorming.

This is the time when you can imagine worlds and scenarios for your characters. You can ask ‘what if’ questions galore, putting your characters in the most incredible situations and then getting them out in the nick of time. If you feel you want to write a scene while plotting, go ahead.

This is what often happens to me – I am charting the course of the story and suddenly I can see it in front of me and what happens next, and I just have to write out the new scene. Naturally, this is easier when you have the rough outline of the story set out, but there is nothing to stop you from going ahead with it straightaway. As long as you come back and finish the outline afterwards. 

The hugely successful indie writer, K.M. Weiland, says in her new book, Writing Your Story’s Theme, that she thinks the division between plotters and ‘pantsers’ doesn’t really exist. She thinks everybody has to plot at some point, the only difference is when you decide to do it – before writing or once you’ve written the first draft. (https://www.thecreativepenn.com/2020/10/05/outlining-your-novel/)

Joanna Penn of The Creative Penn (https://www.thecreativepenn.com) talks about ‘discovery writing’, or finding the story through writing it. I think most of us are so-called discovery writers, even those who have a tight plot and a set of deeply thought-out characterizations. Something you hadn’t planned always happens on the page. But, if you have really thought about the story in advance, it’s easier to slot the new scene or plot twist into the story.

Plotting Aides

There are several methods you can use to plot your story.

There’s the Story Arc, Hero’s Journey, Snowflake method, to name a few. These methods function as a kind of template. The basic premise is, that a story has to have a beginning, a middle and an end. This sounds simplistic, but it’s a good starting point when you begin to plot a story that you want to tell.

Hero’s Journey is probably the most complicated one of all of these, as well as the oldest, but it doesn’t really matter which one of the methods you use. As long as you get to a point where you know roughly what each section or even chapter looks like, you can use that plot to write more efficiently every day.

Personally, I use the Story Arch method, with a nod to Hero’s Journey. I chart each of my characters’ paths through the story, attributing each character their ‘role’ in the Journey.

(I describe the basic Story Arc theory in more detail in Write Every Day: Motivate Yourself to Succes in 10 Easy Steps.)

Plottr

Before I began writing my latest novel, An Island Summer, I discovered Plottr, a program that easily gives you the tools to turn your story idea into a plot. You can choose from many templates, but I gathered all the ideas and information I had already decide upon and designed a five-act plot for the novel. Putting it into Plottr made it easier to see what worked and what didn’t. The program improved and speeded up my writing enormously, so I highly recommend this piece of software.

To find out more about Plottr use this link.

Over to You

Are you struggling to plot your stories before writing? Is that the reason you are not writing every day even if you would like to, and have the time to do it? If so, just bite the bullet and start brainstorming!

Use a spreadsheet, a whiteboard, Plottr, or anything that will inspire you to start plotting. Remember the plot you decide on isn’t set in store. You can always change it. But if you have no plan, it’s far more difficult to alter your course. And it’s far more difficult to write every day if each time you sit down at your desk, you have to start the plotting process afresh.

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