Plotting Time!: AKA How I Plot a Novel

Yesterday, I talked about pants vs plotter and showed a bit of the hybrid going between the two.  Today, we're going to go into what I usually do when I am plotting a novel and the steps I go through before I get to plotting.

Before I can even get to plotting, I like to set up what is called the basic stats of the novel.  I like to have a title in mind, even if it's mystery novel, more than any sort of real title.  I put which genre I'll be writing in, a subgenre if needed, how many words I plan to write, if there's a challenge involved such as NaNoWriMo, and a summary.  You're probably wondering how I can have a summary before I have a plot, but the summary isn't all that in depth.  Sometimes it'll just be a few lines of the idea that I have and then I'll come back to fill in the summary after I've got the plot outline done.

If you're wondering how long your novel should be, LitRejections has genre guidelines that can be found here.  For fantasy, I always try to shoot for 90,000 and to not go above 100,000.  It seems like a lot but, at the end of the novel, I'm always right in-between 90 and 100 thousand words.

After you have your basic stats, I then create the world through worldbuilding.  If you're setting something in the real world, you don't have to create a whole new world.  However, you do need to know where your characters are going to be at any given moment.  To take Chicago as an example, you'll want a map or two in order to see where your characters are going.  Are they going to travel by car or are they going to take public transport?  If it's public transport, are you going by bus or L?  So, it does take a bit of research and visiting the city that you want to set your city in.  I know that we have Google and other ways to look, but sometimes the best way to know your setting is to visit it.  How else are you going to know that the best way to get across town as quickly as possible?  You won't unless you go and see for yourself.  If you are creating a new world, I highly recommend Patrica C. Wrede's Worldbuilder Questions, 30 Days of Worldbuilding, and Anna Staniszewski's World Building Through Character.  I've used the last link a lot as it springboards into creating more of the fantasy world in different ways than the other two.

So, you've got your world, now it's time for characters.  There are a lot of character sheets that you can use out there.  However, I find it easy to boil down the characters to the following:

Name:
Age / Apparent Age:
Appearance:
Background:
About (Personality):
Weapons, Magical Ability, Misc:

Now, I sometimes do this before I get into world building.  It helps to have an idea of the characters I went to set in the world vs creating a world and then putting the characters into them.  You can write as little or as much as you want, but that's the basic formula I use to create my characters.  There are also various places where you can get appearance ideas, but I recommend just taking a look around you when you're out and about.  Sometimes you get the best ideas by seeing people in Starbucks and deciding that their mohawk works perfectly for the character in your head.

So, now we're at the outline.  You're probably all thinking "thank Deity of Choice".  Since we have everything all together before getting to this point, there are some novels where the outline writes itself.  All one needs to remember is the classic where you have a start, the middle, and the end.  I like throwing in a little curve or twist near the end, before you get the clear ending, as a way to put in a bit more plot.  It's usually used with police procedural, when they think they've got the killer, but it turns out to be someone they suspected but discarded.  It's not rocket science and this outline type has gotten me through a lot of different novels.

So, that's how I plot out my novels.  It takes a while, so I like to give myself a month or two before I sit down to write.  That way I can make sure that everything is in order and I don't need to change anything.  Plotting is a lot of work but it is nothing compared to trying to write the novel itself.  So, you want to make sure that you like what you're about to write, you like the characters, and you know the world.  If you've got those three, then you're going to be all set.

Would this method work for you?  I'd like to know, if you feel like leaving a comment, or if you've got a method that works better.  Until next time, keep on writing.