"How to Plot a Novel" Strategies- Do They Work?

[Anthony Tompkins]

Hey everybody! New to this community but it looks like there is an absolute TON of helpful and cool peeps here. I was wondering about something that you all may be able to answer. Using many different forums, one thing that never fails to pop up are plotting guides. I see posts upon posts filled with diagrams or written instructions. "5 Step Method to Plotting Your Novel" or "The Best Way to Outline Your Plot" are common names for what I mean. So many of them have that overwhelming language too. Best. It always strikes me as a bit presumptive, granted how many different writers and styles there are.

I was wondering, have any of you found a resource like that on the forum or otherwise that actually lived up to its claims? Any kind of guide or step-by-step diagram that truly worked for you? Or is there actually one you feel you could point to and definitively say, that one is the best? Truly curious to see a list of these from different writers.

Hope you're all doing alright with this craziness,
Ant-Man

 

[.matthew.]

I'd say no from my perspective, but I'm a big old pantster.

The only one I like the look of is the basic 3-act structure further broken down into central plot points so you know when things should happen and what order etc. Preferably in a way where you can swap them around in necessary.

 

[Brian G Turner]

Welcome to the forums @Anthony Tompkins.

A point that was recently raised in a similar discussion is that a lot of people new to writing really don't know what they are doing - they are like artists who have never used colour before, or even know what it is. Therefore for most people it's helpful to learn what the technical tools of writing actually are, through experimentation and use.

Ultimately, though, such tools are wielded in a personalized way - everyone finds the method that works for them, or their current project.

Most writing guides are written by people with no real publishing experience - writing guides written by successful writers are more about how they did/do it, in the hope of helping people find their own way.

So, understand something of the basics - POV use, character arcs, pacing, use of information, etc - but there's a big difference between knowing what you should do and what you actually do - the application of what you've learned is the really hard bit.

Just my personal opinion, though - hope it helps.

 

[sknox]

I'm very much a plotter, but I'm not going to make any recommendation, except to say if you are a plotter, read 'em all, because here's what I've found after several years of reading them.

Something will speak to you. It may not be the entirety of one method; very likely it will be bits and pieces. You'll try this and it'll work, you'll try that and it won't. Keep reading, keep trying.

After your first novel, you'll try other things. New things will work, some things still won't. Some, you won't be able quite to figure out if they worked or not.

After another novel, you'll start noticing you keep using certain techniques. You'll also notice you're not reading quite so many articles, and you'll start noticing repetition across articles. You'll start to be embarrassed by how many books on outlining you've collected. You'll also notice that some advice you had thought was really great isn't so great. The advice hasn't changed, you have.

After your third novel, you start to lose interest in reading what others have to say about plotting. You still will adopt a tool or technique, but you're a lot pickier and judgmental. At the start, you were overwhelmed by so many options. Now, the options seem far fewer and even fewer get you excited.

Then you look around you and realize you have a sort of approach, maybe even a process, to writing. Congratulations! You have found the best plotting method. Except you keep growing with every new story, and the best method turns out to be what you plan to do on the *next* story. Because you're sure you can improve on the *last* one you did.

But the best for everyone? The best for every circumstance? The best for all time? Nope. Doesn't exist.

 

[Steve Harrison]

I agree with everything that's been said here and unless you get lucky early, it can take a lot of trial and error to find the method that suits you the best. And as soon as you hit on that method, you can find it's useless when writing your next novel.

My way of novel writing until now involves coming up with a story, running it over and over in my head until I believe it has enough bones to be a novel. When I have a beginning, an end, and several 'stepping stone' incidents to link them, I start writing. The characters turn up as I go, as does the detail. I don't know how that works, but somehow it always has.

For my latest novel, however, I started writing with only a clearly defined character and no story, so go figure!

 

[HalaxyGigh]

I'm a definite plotter. Personally, I break the events of the story down into brief or not so brief paragraphs, numbered 1 to however many, usually in the 20s or 30s. Each paragraph of description explains what happens at that point in the story in a small segment, usually constituting a page or two of the finished story, with important details highlighted and lines of dialogue written.
This helps me keep track of important details and means I don't overlook details that can be foreshadowed ahead of time and called back to later on. It's also just easier IMO to write the story briefly as if I was explaining it to somebody over a conversation, skimming over unneccessary parts and mentioning only significant details and statements. Once that's finished, I write the full story by expanding each paragraph into a scene of prose, one by one.

 

[ginny]

Reading as much as possible in traditionally published novels and seeing what works for those authors is probably the best writing guide.

However; after that. you still have to begin writing and making your own mistakes as you go.

So the key is to start writing and keep writing.

 

[zmunkz]

I was heavily influenced by this Brandon Sanderson lecture... I recommend it if you are looking for some good discussion.

Generally speaking, I plot backwards from my payoff scenes to figure out what needs to happen in order for them to pay properly. Eventually that connects everything together.

 

[The Big Peat]

Yes, I've found a detailed plot structure that worked for me. And a semi-detailed one.

I think when evaluating these things you have to concentrate most on the "Whys" they're giving you as much/more than the "Whats". Both of the structures that worked for me explained a lot of why I should take the steps I was taking, which both allowed me to fulfil them better and to work out how I could or could not change them with the story working. Pretty much anything is possible in a story, but every choice has consequences within the story and one needs to work with that.

If the "Whys" make sense to you, you have something that might work for you. If not, you probably don't.

 

[Anthony Tompkins]

I find it truly interesting the amount of encouragement here to find your own style. I couldn't agree more. There will always be benefits in different methods, but you've got to puzzle-piece together what works for you through experimentation and experience. Only time will tell what works the "best", and that will only be for one person.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Only time will tell what works the "best", and that will only be for one person.

And not necessarily, even for that one person, the same process for everything they write. Every book has its own requirements. Usually changes in a writer's established process will evolve in small increments over several books and a long period of time. But sometimes the process will change between one book and the next.