what do you use to plot?

[Quillwitch]

I'm wondering what you all use for plotting your novels, if you do at all plot. Do you use one template in particular, or a mix of several? Does it depend on the story you will be telling? Did you create your own template? Or did you get it from somwhere else?

 

[Robert M Derry]

By the time I get to writing anything I've usually (on walks with the dog, musings at the wheel & runs in the park) formulated an idea in my head as to what's going to happen in a novel, start to finish.

Although I have ideas for quite a few novels, I have actually only written one, so my experience in this area is limited. However, I'd say that before you set sail, you must have an idea as to where your are headed. I think it's foolish to start writing without plotting at all, it's a thankless task, but it needs to be done.

Plotting is broad strokes, it's not writing the novel, so it doesn't need to be prose; only notes. The plot is really how the story progresses from one point to the next. To a degree what happens in the scene isn't relevant from a plotting perspective, it's simply that the scene takes your character(s) from one plot point to the next. What matters is the information that a character(s) needs to learn in a scene, in order to progress. How they learn that information is often irrelevant for the purposes of plot.

e.g. A plot point might be; Bill needs to learn that his wife; Jane has been having an affair with his best mate Steve. With this information he can then plan his revenge.

You just need to decide where this plot point happens in your story and have a rough idea as to how he finds out. E.g. Bill sees a text on Jane's phone whilst she's in the shower (clichéd, I know).

The 'how' will evolve when you are writing and redrafting your novel, but if you plot well at the outset, consequentially your story should remain similar even if 'what' happens is totally different. A plot is how the consequence of one action leads to another and so on and so on.

 

[Imran Omer]

For Entangled Lives, and now for The Broken Promise, I have just used a Word file that I kept changing as the plot changed in the course of writing the novel. But I have always started with a plot (and a theme) and without it I feel lost. There are some templates (and even softwares) but I have always found them cumbersome and a distraction. I am old fashioned, and don't even use computer for my first draft.

 

[Leonora]

I've found Jami Gold's basic beat sheet really useful to make sure my WIP has some shape, and the major plot points were falling roughly in the right place. When I finally came up with a plot simple enough to transfer straight from the beat sheet to a synopsis, I felt like I finally had a strong story.
Whether an agent will agree remains to be seen.

 

[Webbwalker]

I don't plot much at all usually. I write characters and the characters dictate the plot. Having said which, my latest is quite tightly plotted, but I don't use any tools for that - I'll be honest, I didn't know there were such things. Not much help, I know.

 

[Carol Rose]

I just use a Word doc.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I don't sit down with a template as such, but I work pretty much to the classic 3 act structure and story arc.

 

[Matnov]

Never really had a formal method of plotting. Lucky I have trusty old Norman beavering away in my crust, working out those details. I guess that it boils down to me putting my characters in the brown smelly stuff and letting my old chum work out the best way of extracting them from it. Never really got why a novel needs to be that tightly plotted that it needs an equation applying to it. Film, even TV, that I get because you only have two dimensions to work with and every word and pause has to matter but with a novel? Nah. Live a little. Have some fun, go out on a limb, let situations remain unresolved, at least in the first draft. Make it to the end of that and then screw all the nuts a little tighter because I never really understand the wider themes until I have reached 'The End'.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

I draw my plot as a graph--you know, that ridiculous curve used to illustrate rising action, climax, falling action. I scribble out key events/scenes on the graph. Then I ignore it completely and write. Sometimes I refer back to it, but usually, by the time I need to refer to it, the characters have so messed with my plot that it's unrecognisable.

 

[Quillwitch]

I've found Jami Gold's basic beat sheet really useful to make sure my WIP has some shape, and the major plot points were falling roughly in the right place. When I finally came up with a plot simple enough to transfer straight from the beat sheet to a synopsis, I felt like I finally had a strong story.
Whether an agent will agree remains to be seen.

Thatś what iḿ looking for. But I haven found a beat sheet i actually like. I 'll try Jamie Gold.

 

[Quillwitch]

By the time I get to writing anything I've usually (on walks with the dog, musings at the wheel & runs in the park) formulated an idea in my head as to what's going to happen in a novel, start to finish.

Although I have ideas for quite a few novels, I have actually only written one, so my experience in this area is limited. However, I'd say that before you set sail, you must have an idea as to where your are headed. I think it's foolish to start writing without plotting at all, it's a thankless task, but it needs to be done.

Plotting is broad strokes, it's not writing the novel, so it doesn't need to be prose; only notes. The plot is really how the story progresses from one point to the next. To a degree what happens in the scene isn't relevant from a plotting perspective, it's simply that the scene takes your character(s) from one plot point to the next. What matters is the information that a character(s) needs to learn in a scene, in order to progress. How they learn that information is often irrelevant for the purposes of plot.

e.g. A plot point might be; Bill needs to learn that his wife; Jane has been having an affair with his best mate Steve. With this information he can then plan his revenge.

You just need to decide where this plot point happens in your story and have a rough idea as to how he finds out. E.g. Bill sees a text on Jane's phone whilst she's in the shower (clichéd, I know).

The 'how' will evolve when you are writing and redrafting your novel, but if you plot well at the outset, consequentially your story should remain similar even if 'what' happens is totally different. A plot is how the consequence of one action leads to another and so on and so on.

I like this idea. Quite helpful.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

I'm part-pantser, part-plotter. I know the strands of the plot before beginning, which involve the central core of my crime story plus a couple of supporting branches that are the other investigations my detectives are running. These often contain humour or add weight to the theme of the principal element...such as family loyalty and how poverty is the mother of crime.

There are some useful ideas discussed in this old thread.

Similar to Katie-Ellen's 3 act structure and story arc chart, I've found that my own plotting follows the shape of this graph:

Story Structure & Plot - Novel Writing Tips

One potential dilemma for a writer when plotting comes when writing a series, for you might include ongoing internal dialogue for your main character, as part of his story arc, that doesn't have direct relevance to the action of the current story. In my own Cornish Detective series, during the first four stories, my protagonist agonizes over how he'd react if he caught a paedophile in the act, but he only finds out in the penultimate chapter of Book 5—when he beats the offender to death! This is the sort of detail which would have to be pointed out to a professional editor, who might be tempted to red pen it as irrelevant.

 

[Imran Omer]

I'm part-pantser, part-plotter. I know the strands of the plot before beginning, which involve the central core of my crime story plus a couple of supporting branches that are the other investigations my detectives are running. These often contain humour or add weight to the theme of the principal element...such as family loyalty and how poverty is the mother of crime.

There are some useful ideas discussed in this old thread.

Similar to Katie-Ellen's 3 act structure and story arc chart, I've found that my own plotting follows the shape of this graph:

Story Structure & Plot - Novel Writing Tips

One potential dilemma for a writer when plotting comes when writing a series, for you might include ongoing internal dialogue for your main character, as part of his story arc, that doesn't have direct relevance to the action of the current story. In my own Cornish Detective series, during the first four stories, my protagonist agonizes over how he'd react if he caught a paedophile in the act, but he only finds out in the penultimate chapter of Book 5—when he beats the offender to death! This is the sort of detail which would have to be pointed out to a professional editor, who might be tempted to red pen it as irrelevant.

How about a literary novel? I know this plotting works for the crime stories but does it always work for literary or historical novels? I know most of the people say "Yes." But I have reservations about it. Any thoughts?

 

[Eva Ulian]

I'm not a "good" plotter, unless it's a short story, then all my actions are outlined beforehand. But in novels, it's quite a different story, and that too depends on the kind of novel. If I'm writing something where much of the action revolves around a mystery as in "God's Apparel" then I will know what the beginning is and what the end is and anything in between will have to be plotted out as I go along, usually scene by scene.

If instead it's what one refers to as "literary" fiction or a novel based on theme then I carry that theme around in my head for ages, and go for long walks with it too. Should anyone see me walking in the meadows and fields around here they will probably catch me talking to myself and maybe consider making out a detention order to an asylum. Here too I will have quite clear what my theme is, in other words what the book is about and sometimes only with a one word description. Apart from some or even copious captions or reflections I may have jotted down, everything else is running around free. I then sit in front of my computer in a frenzy of ecstasy and delight and let the stream of consciousness take me wherever it will. I then go back with my red pen and make sense of it all. That's what I'm doing with my present WIP where the theme is "EVIL" and the title is "The Devil's Whore".

 

[Quillwitch]

I'm part-pantser, part-plotter. I know the strands of the plot before beginning, which involve the central core of my crime story plus a couple of supporting branches that are the other investigations my detectives are running. These often contain humour or add weight to the theme of the principal element...such as family loyalty and how poverty is the mother of crime.

There are some useful ideas discussed in this old thread.

Similar to Katie-Ellen's 3 act structure and story arc chart, I've found that my own plotting follows the shape of this graph:

Story Structure & Plot - Novel Writing Tips

One potential dilemma for a writer when plotting comes when writing a series, for you might include ongoing internal dialogue for your main character, as part of his story arc, that doesn't have direct relevance to the action of the current story. In my own Cornish Detective series, during the first four stories, my protagonist agonizes over how he'd react if he caught a paedophile in the act, but he only finds out in the penultimate chapter of Book 5—when he beats the offender to death! This is the sort of detail which would have to be pointed out to a professional editor, who might be tempted to red pen it as irrelevant.

I followed your link. WOW! That brought back memories! I miss those days, and the people who for some reason or other are no longer here on litopia. Oh yeah, and the graph is cool too. And Jason 's graph too! Those were the days of absolutely sillyness. When everyone ate cake!