Plotting - how do you do it?

[celebkiriedhel]

It's just a thought I was having as I was trying to work out what happens next in my story.

Do you plot the full story in detail, or just pick main events, or just run with it?

Even with play-led Sims stories, do you plot major events?

[dinuriel]

I'd describe what I usually do as a sort of "connect the dots" method. When I come up with an idea, I usually know how it starts, how it ends, and most of the key points in the middle. As I progress with the writing, I come up with the transitions and just... connect the dots

Sometimes it's more successful than others, though. Ashelia at Dusk is kicking my ass right now because that's all it really is--pretty much a giant line between the end of Ashelia at War and the beginning of the next installment. Usually, though, the method works better for me than that would imply.

The big exception is Naroni. Since it's theoretically endless, that method doesn't really work, so I plan post-by-post, X number of posts ahead of time. I don't really go into too much detail, though--just a list of all the characters I need for the post and a vague one-sentence description of the events.

[laura]

For the record, I pretty much plot LH or my novel, or any story, the same way.

Not sure if this will make much sense, but I kind of "see the future" lol! I don't write in order, and I rarely start from the beginning. Usually I don't even know what the beginning or the end is until I've been writing for a while.

So once I've been writing for a while, once the characters are formed and talking in my head, I'll start to see them in scenes, or I'll hear them say something, I'll know what they want, or how that conflicts with what another character wants. I know how they'll behave in certain situations. What's that writing quote - know your character's greatest fear, and make her face it? Something like that.

Eventually I'll also discover what the story is actually *about*. You know, the meaning of life kind of stuff, lol! Then I can tie together themes and subplots.

And this is why I love LSB! I take all of these snippets - the full scenes, or just little lines of thought, and I put them each in their own item in my builder. I don't always know what order they go in from the start, but once I collect enough pieces, they're kind of like a puzzle that I can shuffle around and see the shape of.

All that is my first draft, and nobody gets to see that, because it's an absolute unholy wreck, lol!

LH, for example, is well first-drafted through 2084 now, and I have snippets of random story, scenes or just small glimpses, spread out well into the 2090's.

After my first draft is when I'll take everything I have, and maybe write out some plot diagrams, or outlines. I love LSB outlines! I know most people who do outline do it before they've written, but I like to do it after - not to tell me where I'll go, but to make sense of where I've already gone. It helps get me organized and on course for my second draft.

So then I start the second draft (which is what you guys are actually reading in LH now, and what I'm working on in my novel now too), and that is written in order. And yes, sometimes I will stumble on something in the writing of my second draft that will kind negate something I've written from the first draft, but I'm okay with that, because it's always a better idea than the first. It's usually something inspired by new-found depth of character, and just wasn't something I could have seen from the first draft view.

The first draft is where I feel the story. But the second draft is where I make it into something concrete. And plotting? I guess that happens somewhere between the first and second draft?

I hope that made sense, lol!

[thelunarfox]

I'm messy. What I usually do before I start posting a story, I write a lot. Scenes will come to me that have no meaning, and I'll write things down whether they make sense or not.

Once I have everything out that I think I can possibly have, then I organize things and figure out the hows and whys. Usually this means the plot will change completely from what I thought it would be.

So even once I get going, sometimes I still end up shifting and changing things as stuff occurs to me.

Right now, I'm pretty much writing as I go, though most of the stuff I'm writing I've written before. Like Cheryl's story was completely written out already, but now I'm rewriting it. Same thing happened with that whole second part of Paula's story where she goes to stay with Henri. I'm basically winging it, but with an idea of what I want to happen.


ETA: Ha, me and Laura sound like we have the exact same process, but she's described it better. It's exactly like that! I'll write about people talking and doing stuff before I actually know what the story is going to be about.

[celebkiriedhel]

I will tell you right now that I'm a lousy plotter. Plotting is one of my worst blind spots.

That being said - this is what I've done for the current story.

1. Had a general idea of the underlying questions. I hate to call it a theme because it's not anything really defined. It's more about the questions I'm exploring.

2. Created characters that fitted the questions. I've attempted to explore them with lists, and things. But the only ones really talking in my head at the moment are Grace, Judith and Brian. I'm assuming that's because they're the ones that are the most attention-seeking. The other families are tending to be more chilled.

3. I have in mind a starting scene for all of them. I'm ignoring the other 4 families at the moment, and just writing out the Peridot's. (see point 2 for why). I also have a basic framework for the Peridot's. That is, I have an ending position for them, because they've already got a second story implied just by where I started.

4. As I've written the scene, a following scene has presented itself, and so on for 5 scenes. Grace has also asked for 2 scenes herself. Which I've written one. I have no idea how to fit the other scene in.

At this point I've thrown my hands up into the air, and gone Oh Crap! I don't know how they get from these 5 scenes, to the midpoint. (Which I thought was the endpoint, but ended up being the midpoint when I realised that I needed Grace to have had her baby by the end of the book.)

5. So then I tried to plot the big events from the middle to the end of the story, and realised that the midpoint was actually sitting 75% of the way, and that Grace running away was actually the midpoint.

6. So Now, I have lots of events between the mid-point to the end-point plotted. Because things get very busy with events after Grace runs away.

But I'm still stuck with what happens between the start, which is the 5 scenes. And how she actually got to the point where she thinks that running away is a better alternative than staying home even though she's pregnant.

Oh and the scene that Grace still wants me to write, is her asking her father (the minister) why he's a christian - and dissing him before he opens his mouth.

[raquelaroden]

I think I'm somewhat more like Van in my plotting. I have a general idea of the story and some of the major events, and I know the end, but the transitions and a lot of the other stuff I plan as I go.

I started out with a very basic, skeletal plot for the Ed Prescott mysteries, focusing on the overarching mystery of the entire series. I usually don't plot the smaller mystery for each story until I finish the one before it. The relationships in the story--those were initiated by the stuff I was planning on the go, because I didn't have a set plan in my head for that stuff, really. I get ideas for scenes all the time, and I can tell how much of an impact they'll make by how often I'll think of them and try to rework them before I start actually writing them down. The scenes are out of order, and they inspire most of the paths that the relationships take in the story--but what I find fascinating is that they often inspire the ways that I connect the various plot threads, too. I don't know how that happens, but it's amazing when it happens and when I can tell it's going to work. Often, I have a scene waiting for a while, and like so many of you, I wait for its place to naturally occur in the story. While I'm getting ready to write a chapter, I think through the scenes I have ready and I see if any would fit there--and if they don't, I just wait.

I had to start plotting more deliberately in the midst of the second story, because I knew some big things were going to come up in the third that would have to be carefully developed through subsequent stories. This involved sitting down and writing out exactly what I thought would be revealed in each subsequent story, as well as what would happen in some of Ed's key relationships, and when she'd meet certain characters. It all still feels very skeletal, though I have so much more information now than I did when I started the first story.

[laura]

Ah, the lead-up to the middle conflict is always the trickiest. I had this same problem in my novel, a big black hole at about the 30-40% mark, lol!

I'm trying to remember what exactly revealed those missing parts. I think what I did was I actually wrote out the progression I wanted each character to take, during that gap. Like, you have Grace who is about to run away. So somehow you have to take her from unhappy (point B) to so damn mad that she can't stand it anymore (point C). You'll have a lot to do to illustrate that change.

Then think about the progression your other characters are taking as well. And lay them against Grace's progression, and see how they intersect and clash with each other. There must be some story scenes that pop out for you there.

I think it's fine to just focus on the stories and characters that inspire you. Maybe this story is more about those three characters than it is the other ones? If that's where the story wants to go, then so be it!

[celebkiriedhel]

Laura - at the moment it is about those 3 characters primarily, although there is one other family that is already intersecting with them. The other 3 families don't really intersect until book 2. (Actually, I'm completely amazed that there is already a book 2 in my head! And I have a horrible feeling that there's a pre-book for the other families too!)

LH, for example, is well first-drafted through 2084 now, and I have snippets of random story, scenes or just small glimpses, spread out well into the 2090's.

You don't know how happy this makes me

Beth - Yeah - that's where I'm tending to go, writing the scene where she decides to run away, and then the runaway scene. If nothing else it will nail down the mid-point. And it will hopefully shed light backwards too.

I'm finding it fascinating how people do their plotting. I'm going to try some of the ideas that you folk do, and assimilate it into the mess I call my mind!

For those who use LSB, how do you use it when you're plotting?

[laura]

Kiri, glad to have made somebody happy this morning, lol! Even though I've said LH is ending, I don't actually see it truly ending ever, just changing shape, format, or illustration mediums. But the story could go on forever, I suspect, lol!

About LSB, I am hopelessly in love with the Builders! I use them for *everything*!!! When I'm writing, I'll put one scene into each item of the builder. Each flashback gets a builder too.

In the earlier stages, I would just have 4 builders, one for each quarter of the novel, because I wouldn't know precisely where each piece went, but I could pretty well guess if it was nearer to the beginning, middle, or end. But you can copy/paste them from one builder to another as well, so when I get as far as plotting, after my first draft scenes are written, I can copy/paste, for example, a scene from the "part 1" builder into my "ch. 6" builder.

Here's my ch. 6 setup:


I have a short blurb for each scene, and the builder makes it very easy to move each item up or down in order, or even from one builder to another. Like if I wanted to move a scene from chapter 4 to chapter 6 or whatever.

(The numbers are word count goals, and the "done" means that I've finished it. I'll write little notes to myself there, like: needs more work, or almost there, lol!)

And here's how I use the outline for plotting:


Again, short blurbs for each scene or flashback. I'm quite sure these blurbs mean nothing to anyone but me, lol! But the outline is useful for seeing the bigger picture and the way it's all laid out as a whole.

Hmmm, and I think that's about all the plotting I'll do in LSB. I do also keep a paper notebook that I'll scribble things out in by hand. Not sure why I feel compelled to also have a paper notebook, lol! I could just as easily have another builder labeled "notebook" or something, and then I could even shuffle around my thoughts according to which chapters they relate to.

(Oooh, I might just type up my whole notebook into a builder now, lol! )

[raquelaroden]

In LSB, I use Planners to write the chapters of my stories, so I currently have 3 stories, and they each have their own planner. All of the chapters for each story are contained in their planner, so at a glance I can see the number of chapters I have, their title, and a brief description of what the chapter is about.

I use the Outline tool a lot. I used one to outline the overarching story for the series, but I usually do one for each story as well. Same for the Timeline tool--I adore the timeline feature, because it really forced me to puzzle out how the events were all going to work together, and it forced me to figure out specific things about my characters (their ages, how old they were when different events happened, which events occurred before or during others, etc.). I put together a Timeline for the overarching story, which references events that happened well before the first chapter of my story. Once I reached the first day of the first story, I started using separate story-specific timelines instead. I find it easier to plot timelines based on the characters, rather than what I want to happen in the story.

Finally, I have Notes everywhere. If I were smarter I'd probably put the stuff I have in notes into a builder, but for some reason I just open a note and start writing out a scene. I cut and paste the note into a chapter when I finally find a place for it. I also keep notes of things I need to keep in mind while I'm writing, like Ed's work schedule, or threads that need to be resolved for each story.

[celebkiriedhel]

You know - posting up your outline gave me an idea, and I went away to write one just for the Peridots. And now it's making more sense. I still don't know what actually happens - but I'm closer to the 25% mark now with a bit more idea about describing the relationships, and discovered a place for the talk Grace has been bugging me for, AND discovered why the pregnancy didn't show up in the Grace is found scene.

And there's about 26 more scenes that I have ideas for, and 12 more chapters - not fleshed out. So that's looking a bit better.

Up until now, I've been putting all my scenes straight into the planner. I haven't really understood the difference between the planner and the builder. But it's starting to make more sense.

I can be quite a visual thinker - so I think it's time to get out the big piece of paper and draw some pictures.

[Stacy]

This thread may pull me away from WoW for a while later this weekend. See, there's hope still!

There will be massive amounts of linking music videos, and a lot of ignorant talk about music from someone who has never studied music theory but feels it in her brain, darn it! Just so you know.

Oh! And I have old pics from when we were sharing pics of our notebooks that I can post!

BTW - I've also been meaning to start a thread kind of like this. I've seen you guys chattering about "narrative flow" lately. What is that and what does it mean?

[thelunarfox]

It is interesting to hear how you all plot. And thank you for the pictures Laura of what you do in LSB. Poor LSB! I still pretty much use it like a word processor except for the stuff I do in builder. Oh and I like to use the journal feature as I think things out. But other than that, when I really need to organize my thoughts I end up using a sheet of paper and a pen so I can actually see everything out before I start organizing it.

[muzegoddess]

I had planned to make a short post of my "plotting system", then as I was reading everyone else's comments I saw all the references to LSB and spent the better part of last night trying to figure out what it was (should've just asked), downloading it, and playing with. It is a fabulous tool! Thank you Laura for the screen shots; I might not have looked into it had I not had that glimpse of how it can work.

LSB aside, I tend to have flashes of a moment in the story that just comes to me and I plot around that. Nothing ever really starts from the begining for me. I always start at the end or some point in the middle and work backwards and sideways; anyway but from begining to end. I've tried outlines, index cards, etc. but I genally end up making notes about or writing a random scene and building around that. I've never been much of a liner thinker.

[Stacy]

This is not the epic post. Can't type that much one handed.

Have been listening to writing music at work and thinking about this thread, about how I see the music in my head, how it goes up and down and back and forth and spirals and screams.

Am spending tonight mostly in the reading chair, reading Annie Dillard's Living in Fiction. Haven't gotten very far into it yet but she talks about the unity of art, the structural integrity.

This song is a seriously good example of that. And it's on The Seth Experience, the first of the mix CDs.

Country Death Song - Violent Femmes

Listen to it. Particularly the bits where the pit is mentioned - it's faint at first, at "to explore". Then it's more pronounced at "going to the caves". Then it goes quiet at the height, at the pit, with little echoes. Then...big roll at "bottomless pit", followed by near silence and then an explosion of sound in which there are echoes of all that came before. And finally, a small repeat of the roll after the "push her in the well" and then the big finish.

I discovered this while writing Valley and have been more consciously (and hopefully more subtly and elegantly) applying it to 10. The subconscious begins the pattern and then the conscious begins to see the thread and to weave it, although never too consciously. Never forcing it.

In Farmer Brown, I did not set out to end at the beginning. But as I wrote, I saw that it had to be that way.

I don't plan or do outlines, and often I do not know what is going to happen until my fingers type it. I do sometimes brainstorm a bit - here are the old pics of notes about a Valley update. Hey, the newer people haven't seen them!

whole page

SPOILER: Click to show

close ups of each half

SPOILER: Click to show

SPOILER: Click to show

The Wal-Mart thing was about meeting my mother for the Stone Mountain trip - I remember Catherine joking about Seth showing his dislike of a Wal-Mart moving into Sunset Valley.

So yeah - I start writing, see the patterns my subconscious throws up, weave them lightly throughout the story, and occasionally brainstorm things without regards to margins or lines.

And this post was brought to you entirely by my left hand while the right hand, lazy twisted thing, rested on my leg. I can do 10.08 like this, starting tomorrow. Time consuming, but doable.

[persephonetree]

In real life, I am quite easily the most disorganized person you could ever meet. This is very obvious when it comes to my plotting. I have a couple of major events that I know will for sure happen, and then I just let the smaller parts fall in. Such an ineffective way of plotting, but I'm far too lazy to come up with a better one, lol.

[bunnylita]

Dec 23, 2010 22:53:28 GMT -5 persephonetree said:

In real life, I am quite easily the most disorganized person you could ever meet. This is very obvious when it comes to my plotting. I have a couple of major events that I know will for sure happen, and then I just let the smaller parts fall in. Such an ineffective way of plotting, but I'm far too lazy to come up with a better one, lol.

I do things similarly. I figure out the big stuff, and fill in the little stuff as I go along. I've started doing more in depth outlines lately, but they always end up changing a lot.

[mdpthatsme]

Some of the Sim stories I just let flow, but I=control freak so mostly everything is plotted in some way. Alternate Universe for example has four main stages (I've already hit two: kidnapping and Tatiana/blue fire) now there's two more before I've completed the story. Not giving away a time frame or anything. But I make sure that I plot where actions are leading to.

My manuscripts are a whole new world. Each chapter is plotted out in sections.

I. Entry of scene
II. Conflict
III. Character interactions (good and bad)
IV. Direction
V. End of scene

Geez, it's almost like a play...but it doesn't flow like one. Thank goodness. Of course there's little mid-steps inbetween each part.

Also I do a little Character Motivation through the stories, in other words, I let the character's problems, pasts, flaws, etc. help in creating parts of the storyline. For instance, Shane of The Gang is an active leader of a gangsta group so his life troubles=mess for his friends and love ones. Danger Will Robinson. Danger.

[Lorsty]

Plotting. It's amazing to see how everyone has a different method of doing it.

In real life I tend to be a very organized person and that kind of shows in my writing style and, to be honest, I'm not the kind of person who says "I'll write about X" and then proceed to do it. I'm not like that.

Usually I just get a little idea for something and start working with it: what can I do with it? How can I start? Where will it lead me to? Why did we get here?

After I have figured out all of that I start to work on the world where the idea will live. This is one of the most important parts for me because I really can't elaborate on any idea if I don't have a "place" and "time" for it to grow and evolve. This part of the process may take a very long time as it can be very hard to find the right setting for the story.

Once I have a setting I keep molding that little "idea" until I have something barely resembling a plot. Only then will I start deliberately working on the plot. And this is the part when I get told “ur doin it worng!!!!1111one”

After I have a very raw version of the plot I want for the work in question, I “create” the chapters I’ll use on the story giving them a name and a two paragraphs description of what will happen in every chapter. To create the chapters I usually think of all the things I want to add to enhance the story and all the things I need to add to give depth to the characters. This part is fun because it’s the one where I take full control of the story.

Once that is done I create a playlist per chapter and I tweak it around depending on the mood I believe will be good for every single scene. It’s like creating a soundtrack.

Finally, after all of that is done, I can start writing stuff and I just let the words flow.

P.S. I need to find a good avatar.

[drew]

Hi Lorsty! And welcome!

I somehow missed this thread, it is very interesting to read of everyone's method of plotting. I have tons of admiration for people who are very organized. Sit down and do some sort of summary before they start to write. I wish I could do that. The best I do is scribble a few vague plot ideas in a dog-eared notebook.
Then I sit in a chair and just write, and let it take me where it goes, keeping that vague plot idea in the back of my mind. I am amazed sometimes what roads I go down, ones I didn't originally plan, I love it when that happens.

I am a 'pantser', I write by the seat of my pants, it is what works for me~