I think of myself as a seat-of-the-pants plotter (translation: I sit and write whatever comes into my head.) I know my characters and have a vague idea what is going to happen in the story (most of the time.) Last year for NANO I wasn’t even sure of the story, I just knew my characters, setting the three main characters were going to share a great adventure with a dragon named Myrria. Oh and there had to be some volcanoes and a spiritual lesson.
For some writers this may not be enough to go on. So you can see when asked to talk about plotting, it’s a real stretch for me. To help myself and hopefully you face this thing called plotting, we will journey through my upcoming NANO project. I will forewarn you, I will be cheating on the plotting as this book will be the second in a trilogy in which the first and third books are already written.
Just a little sidebar here, a useful hint for series writers: Don’t ever publish the third book in a trilogy before the first two, even if you’ve written them in that order. Always publish the first one first.
Now we return to our regularly scheduled programming: Plotting. I know what happens in the first and third book, but I need to make all the connections in the second book. I know all the important players, I know the setting and have an idea of the events that need to occur. But, how can I make this plot come to life? Sure, I know the basic story, but how do I turn that story into a plot someone will read?
My first step: Make a list of the things I know need to happen.
- Joachim and Brandan are both crowned king.
- Joachim and Brandan both marry and have children; Joa has twins, a boy and a girl, Brandan has a boy
- Brandan returns to the path of evil
- Brandan attempts to assassinate Joa and wife
- Joa’s infant son is kidnapped.
Etc…
There is more but I don’t want to give away my whole plot. My point here is to make you think about what you want to happen in the story. I’m not sure how many things you need to put on your list. A friend of mine, Emily Betts, suggested ten. My theory, as many as you need to tell the story and make sure all those characters get their fifteen minutes of fame. Also you don’t need to have the order of events down in this first step. Just get the ideas down in a way that works for you and then worry about, timelines and conflict, rising tension and all that fun stuff that goes into a good story.
Now that you have some ideas beginning to bubble in the cauldron, what do you do with them? I’ll leave you to cogitate, ferment if you will and in my next post we’ll see where the next step takes us.
P.S. I have to figure it out for myself first. Remember this is new stuff to me too.
Until next time: God Bless and Happy Writing
Chris