I understand people have to develop a feel for this sort of thing, and that people do it differently, either by hashing out the rough details before-hand or by discovering as they go. But I want to know how you, specifically in your experience, find yourself settling on plot points. How do you decide, "yep this would be a good scene to have, in fact the story needs this scene"? And then, let's say you work out the vague map of events, how do you get the story from point to point? How do you know what information to salt in and when and how much?
In short stories I plan it all out. For larger works I start with a few early plot points, whilst I'm still developing the characters, then leave them to get on with it and wait to be surprised. If I've done it right I will be, and if I don't see the end coming then neither will anyone else.
I'm a bit of an obsessive compulsive when it comes to planning and plotting.
Before I start a new manuscript, I use the attached documents to draft up a rather detailed outline. The Word document is a brief summary of the book "Story Engineering" by Larry Brooks. It provides info regarding what certain plot points are and where they should generally fall. I also use an Excel document that gives me space to write decriptions of each chapter I'm planning in my manuscript. It also forces me to directly define the first plot point, midpoint, second plot point, and pinch points, and can track the word count of each chapter so these points fall in the right place in the first draft. Unfortunately, LitReactor doesn't allow Excel attachments, so I couldn't include it in its original capacity, but I have included a screenshot of what the sheet looks like.
As you can probably tell, I try to stick to this model as close as possible during my first drafts. Once I've hit my projected word count and begun revisions, my second drafts and on sometimes shift around depending on what needs to be edited or overhauled.
For a long time I was the type of writer to just freewrite without any defined plot points at all and it would take me anywhere from six months to years to finish what I started, but upon starting the model described above I've found that once I get to the actual writing, I can churn out an incredibly polished first draft within the span of one to two months. Outlining does take a lot of time--anywhere from a couple days to a month, depending on how well the story concept is defined in my head--but it's become worth it. Definitely makes for less work during the revisions process in the end.
Was originally scared to share all this because I don't want to seem like an overly organized freak, but if I'm completely honest with myself, that's exactly what I am ... and if giving away my outlining process helps anyone else as much as it's helped me, then it's worth looking a little weird.
I just write. I get an idea in my head, whether it be a title, a character's name, setting, a scene, whatever, that's where I begin. My current wip started with the line: I have no dignity, which is the opening line of the story. I just went from there. I've read the Larry Brooks book and it's great but sometimes I get too bogged down in technicalities. I figure out what my targeted word count is, then every 25% drop a plot point, preferably a bomb that fucks shit up. I try to keep tension/conflict medium to high in every chapter/section. Once I've gotten so much written and have a vague idea of where I want it to go I'll start dreaming up ideas, things I can put the narrator through. For my current, I know the next plot point, not a major one, but one that propels the story into the following plot point, which is the high point of the story, that point where it's make or break for the narrator, then there's one last point, not major either, that take takes the story into the end. I have a very rough draft of the last section and an idea of how I'm going to get there from where I'm currently at. Aside from all that, I have no idea. I have the next section written out, a start of the section after, and once I get there I'll figure out where the narrator will go next. I like to keep it fresh and exciting.
I just write the stuff I know I want to happen and string it together.
@Redd: Check out these videos by Robert Olen Butler. There's 18(?) of them, each one about two hours long. They were for a FSU creative writing class. He was doing a project with postcards and these videos are of him writing a short story for a book of shorts he eventually published called Had a Good Time. The videos can get boring, so you might want to skip ahead a little to get past all the crap. He starts from nothing and writes a short story, with each video expanding on what he had done the previous days. The reason I post this for you is because I also had a problem with editing as I went, especially novel length work, and I could never get past the first few chapters before getting stuck. I always had a hard time figuring out how much editing I could do as I went (obviously there's going to be some) until I watched these videos. Watching the way he works, how he edits as he's going, but continues to move forward helped me immensely. And as a note of credibility, he won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1993. I have a couple of his books including the one mentioned above and yes, he is a fucking damn good writer. Check it out, especially the first five or six where he's still figuring out the story. It might give you some perspective on the whole editing as you go.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIcnmiT0Mc8&list=PLTCv6n1whoI23GmdBZienRW0Q0nFCU_ay
I think of an image and build a story around it. By image, i don't mean just a picture of something, i mean a fully immersed vision of something. I think of something and then look around. What am i doing, where am i, who else is there, what's above me, behind me, in front of me. Then i write manically by longhand until i'm done then i leave it alone for a week, then i go back and edit while transcribing it to the computer. This is only recently, i didn't always do it this way.
I hate outlines, i used to joke with my comp teachers that i shouldn't have to write them because i don't need them. I have a historical thing i want to write someday that will take some research and will likely need an outline but otherwise i can't do it. It's too mind-numbing, too structured. Half the time, i don't even know where the story is going until i get there.
I totally wing it. Usually A concept and a few plot points pop up into my head. Then I assemble them in a word file or on a paper and then I start writing. Usually I try to keep my plot points apart. I write only short stories though. If I wrote a novel I would probably do some more plotting/planning.
I'm for hinting at a back story because too much is no good. I'm reading this book right now that was really good but then the protagonist goes on and on for almost a whole chapter about his childhood and his parents and his education and it completely stalled and bogged down the book. It's boring to me. I think it's better to pepper it throughout the book or story unless it's totally paramount to the plot.
What point of view are you writing in? If it's third-person omniscient, you could always write a few sections from the stranger's point of view, or drop in backstory that way. Or have the stranger drop hints, trying to find out how much the narrator DOES remember, but he's so blissed on drugs he doesn't make the connection, yet the (presumably sober) reader puts it together.
Just a couple thoughts.
edit: Ohh, I hadn't seen that you were saying if in 3rd person I could switch to the stranger's POV. You think it'd work from first-person too? Totally switching narrators from section to section?
- Yes. Check out Bret Easton Ellis's The Rules of Attraction. I write primarily in 1st person and I've written from multiple viewpoints. Just make sure that each of your characters have their own voice and personalities.
@ Redd : I absolutely think it works in first person, as long as you stay IN first-person for each of your points of view. Personally I love reading from the 'villian' point of view because it allows the writer the chance to make the 'villian' a fully realized character, not just a cookie-cutter bad guy. Nuances are important to characterization. I agree with Ryan, above, though ... it's essential for each to have his own voice.
@ Redd -- title the section with the narrator's name.