Kathy McIntosh of Well-Placed Words offers up some great suggestions for staying on track with your chapters. She lists questions at the top of each chapter document and then as she is writing, she reviews them to be sure she is on track in the chapter.

I go one further on this and lay out my chapters in a grid outline – chapters down the left side and main characters across the top. Then I write a short description under each character for what they are doing or thinking in this chapter. It forces me to think about who else might be affected by a specific plot event beside the characters in that scene.

After all, everyone has an opinion and many people like to stick their nose into things that don’t really matter to them at all. You can use that tendency to make your story more believable and cohesive… not to mention, that busybody could cause more problems for your protagonist to overcome.

What methods do you use to keep your chapters on track while you are writing?

The next step in getting ready for speedy NaNo-writing is to work out a plot. You need to know exactly what you’re going to write when you sit down, so plot work is essential. There are a few tools I use when starting to plot.

Core Need/Inner Wound
A good place to start plotting is with the goal of your character. For assistance, I use the Core Need/Inner Wound section of Character Creation Made Easy. It walks you through determining a core need and inner wound for the character and then takes it two steps further into outer goals and inner goals. Once you know the goals for your character, you can determine ways to thwart those goals, and thereby create scenes for your novel.

Create a Plot Clinic
This book provides you with 20 plot tools and a notecarding method you can use to sketch out scenes. It also gives a great explanation of several different plot structures. I think for my NaNo novel, I’m going to use the Cliffhanger Structure.

Plot Outline Mini-Course
This is a seven lesson email course that I just loved, especially the idea of using common conflicts as ideas for plot scene starters. I’m definitely throwing a few of those into my novel.

Snowflake Plotting Method
Randy Ingermanson put this plotting method together. It starts out with the very essence of your story, a one-sentence description of it, and it builds to a complete synopsis.

Synergy
This is a post by Paperback Writer on how to write a synopsis and it has some great links to several synopsis resources on the web.

Whatever method you go with, creating an initial plot for your novel will make it easier to write during November.

Have writer friends who might enjoy this post? Send it to them with my compliments! And add me as a writing buddy at nanowrimo.org so I can follow your progress in November!

Today’s tip from Bob Mayer’s The Novel Writer’s Toolkit is about more pre-work before you start to write your story. He proposes answering six questions before you write:

1. What do I want to write about?
2. What do I want to say about it?
3. Why do I want to say it?
4. Why should anybody else care?
5. What can I do to make them care?
6. What do I want readers to do, think, or see?

The first three questions focus on the writer and are usually easy to answer. The last three questions focus on the reader and can be harder to answer. But if you’re writing with the intent to sell your writing, you need to consider the reader. You want the reader pulled into your story, so engaged that they can’t put it down. The best (and easiest) time to plan the reader’s reaction is before you start writing.

Do you think about your reader before you write?

If you’re looking for a speedy way to map out a plot for your novel, here are three quick methods you could use:

The Snowflake Method – created by Randy Ingermanson, the Snowflake guy. It starts with one sentence and builds into a detailed synopsis with character profiles.

Outline Your Novel in 30 Minutes – this article by Alicia Rasley walks you through creating an outline for your novel in nine quick steps.

Notecarding: Plotting Under Pressure – Holly Lisle details a fun method of using notecards to create various scenes for your story and then walks you through putting them in a coherent order.

Do you have any quick plotting methods you use?

About a month ago, we had some severe thunderstorms roll through the area, taking down tree limbs right and left. Many limbs that managed to stay connected to their trees are bent down and touching the ground, making mowing my yard a challenging exercise. (Ants in the hair, anyone?)

I have options, of course. I could call a tree service to trim up all the limbs. I could trim them up myself (if the chainsaw worked better). Or I could leave them and keep mowing into and around them.

What I really want though, is for the storms to have not come through and the tree limbs to be in their normal positions, high off the ground. Then I wouldn’t be dealing with any of this–not the decision, or the phone call or the work to trim them up and haul away the debris.

In Hooked: Write Fiction That Grabs Readers at Page One & Never Lets Them Go Les Edgerton mentions this desire.

Of course, what people really want–both in fiction and in real life–when a significant problem arises, is for the problem never to have happened in the first place. This is our true goal. To figure out a way to turn back time, to make it so the disaster never occurred. Think about your own life. Perhaps you were cheated on by someone you loved desperately. Wasn’t your first thought that you wished it was still last Thursday, the day before you learned of his infidelity? Wasn’t your second thought that you wished you’d never found out?

We can’t turn back time (unless you’re writing science fiction and are using time travel as a story device), but the desire to return to the world before the problem, or at least a world that doesn’t have the problem any more, is one that each of us experiences in the face of a devastating problem.

Your characters feel the same way. If you’re looking for a quick way to motivate your character (or plot your novel), have something devastating happen and then let the character work toward a world that doesn’t have the problem any more.

What quick methods of character motivation or plotting do you use?

Chris Baty is the mastermind behind National Novel Writing Month. Together with 20 friends in 1999, he set out to each write a novel in a month. Six of them managed to cross the 50,000-word finish line. (Yes, 50,000 words is short by today’s novel standards–Chris arrived at that number by counting the words in the shortest novel on his bookshelf, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World– but it is an achievable goal for a month of writing, especially if you already have a full-time job). Dreadful prose, perhaps, but they had done it. And as each year went by and NaNo grew to encompass thousands of novelists across the world, Chris learned some lessons from the early years:

1. Enlightment is Overrated – Waiting until you are old enough or know enough to write your novel just wastes good years you could be writing great and no-so-great books.

2. Being Busy is Good For Your Writing – Weeks of free time, with nothing to do but write, seldom produce writing and busy people get the most done in life. So write now, no matter how busy you are.

3. Plot Happens – You don’t need a plot to begin writing. It’s okay to just start writing, even if you know nothing about your story.

4. Writing for Its Own Sake Has Surprising Rewards – Writing a novel feels great. It changes how you read books, makes you appreciate the craft that goes into a book more. And writing is the best way to get better at writing.

And out of his experiences with NaNoWriMo, he wrote No Plot? No Problem! as a guidebook for writers to help them through four weeks of hardcore novel-writing. He includes a lot of examples offered up by NaNoWriMo participants of things that helped them push through to the 50,000 word finish.

How It’s Put Together: The chapter titles in the book are descriptive and give you a good idea of what Chris covers in each one:

Section 1: A Round-Trip Ticket to Novel-land: Gearing up for Your Writing Adventure!

• Chapter 1 – Secret Weapons, Exuberant Imperfections, and the End of the “One Day” Novelist
• Chapter 2 – Time-Finding, News-Breaking, and a Step-by-Step Guide to Transforming Loved Ones into Effective Agents of Guilt and Terror
• Chapter 3 – Noveling Nests, Magical Tools, and a Growing Stockpile of Delicious Incentives
• Chapter 4 – Cruising for Characters, Panning for Plots, and the First Exciting Glimpses of the Book Within

Section 2: Write Here! Write Now! A Frantic, Fantastic Week-by-Week Overview to Bashing Out Your Book

• Chapter 5 – WEEK ONE: Trumpets Blaring, Angels Singing, and Triumph on the Wind
• Chapter 6 – WEEK TWO: Storm Clouds, Plot Flashes, and the Return of Reality
• Chapter 7 – WEEK THREE: Clearing Skies, Warmer Weather, and a Jetpack on Your Back
• Chapter 8 – WEEK FOUR: Champagne and the Roar of the Crowd
• Chapter 9 – I Wrote a Novel. Now What?

How It Helped Me: One of the best things about this book is the over-the-top humor that Baty weaves into each sentence. The exuberant enthusiasm is like a shot of double espresso and it makes me want to sit down and start writing just for the sheer joy of it. The entire tone of the book is encouraging; he makes writing feel fun.

Who Can Benefit From Reading It: I’d recommend this book to new writers who are looking for a way to get a novel written. The humor and weekly chapters of encouragement can carry you through a first draft.

I think that more experienced writers could also benefit from reading the book, especially if you’re falling into a rut with your writing. Following Chris’s advice and churning out a first draft in a month might be a good way to shake up your routine and take your writing in a different direction. You could even use it to whip out that interesting novel idea that you’ve been toying with. The one you aren’t sure about writing, but it still flits around in your brain, unwilling to leave. Pick up a copy of No Plot? No Problem! today and experience the exhilarating pace of a 30-day novel.

Orson Scott Card has written 61 books, including the best-selling Ender’s Game and won this year’s Margaret A. Edwards Award for his outstanding contributions to teen literature. An article in the School Library Journal mentions how he manages such tremendous output.

Two full-time assistants help Card free up time for his many activities. So does the speed with which he composes his books. “When I write, I’m very, very fast,” he says. Total typing time, as opposed to thinking time, averages five weeks per novel. “I write a story as if I were telling it to a group of people whose interest I have to hold. So I don’t have time when I’m writing to indulge myself in description or lengthy asides. But the real work, the foundational work, the structural work, the skeleton of the story—that comes before I ever set words on a piece of paper. The thinking time can be years. Very rarely have I gone from idea to finished work very quickly.”

As the writing years go by, I’m finding that I spend more time in that thinking stage, too. The novel I’m currently working on started as a short story. Then I started to think of logical events that would follow that story and I began writing it as a novel. The novel was moving along pretty well until real life events intruded, so I put it on hold for a while.

And while it has been on hold, I’ve continued to have some amazing ideas for it. Ideas that will intensify the conflict and deepen the characters. Ideas that I certainly never would have thought of if I had continued working on it and written straight through to the end. It makes me think that I might need more thinking time on my stories. Maybe I’m rushing into the writing too quickly and not allowing enough time for my subconcious to come up with unique plot twists and character conflicts.

So for now, I’m taking notes as my brain comes up with ideas and I have a feeling this story will be a lot better because of increased thinking time.

How much thinking time do you allow on your stories?

As a follow-up to the post on Plotters vs. Pantsers, here’s a free ebook on plotting. 

Create A Plot Clinic by Holly Lisle contains her years of experience in developing multiple plot tools to create over thirty novels.

She shares

• what goes into a great plot (hint… it all comes from you)
• how plots grow
• six different plot structures and how to mix and match them
• two plot tools to get you started

This is just the beginning of a much longer ebook that covers eighteen more plotting tools (because no tool works every time, as every writer knows) as well as how to plot while you’re writing and also when you’re revising.   There’s a link to the longer book inside the ebook.

If you’re looking for some help creating a plot, download this book.  It’s free… what’s to lose?

It’s an age old argument… plot your story vs. sit down and just start writing. 

Plotters say that knowing where the story is going is vital.  How can you create a great story if you don’t know how it will end?  It is essential to create an outline detailing the scenes and plot points of your story.  Having character dossiers is also helpful.  Without good planning, your story will end up as a muddle of disconnected plotlines and random events.  Planning keeps you on track with a cohesive story structure that leads you to a satisfying end.

Pantsers (as in seat-of-the-pants writing) on the other hand believe that plotting ahead of time smothers all the life out of a story.  Instead, a writer should sit down and write whatever comes to mind.  Start with your character and see where she takes you.  Sure, the book may end up messy and disorganized, but that’s what revision is for.  Getting words down on the page without constraining yourself to an outline allows your mind to be spontaneously creative.  You will come out with some amazing material that you could never have planned ahead of time.

So which of these methods is better?  Well, they both are.  No two writers have the same writing habits.  Some work best outlining every last scene in the book.  Some work best with no planning at all.  If creating an outline works for you, then that’s the better one.  For you.  Same with using no outline.   The important thing is finding the method that works for you.

If you’re not sure which one is your method, here are a few tips to try out:

Plotter

• Jot down a few ideas for scenes you’d like to include.
• Organize them into a logical order (this scene needs to happen before that scene does).
• Aim to get a minimum number of scenes defined, including a good opening scene, three major plot points, a climax scene and a wrapup scene.
• Using your loose outline, begin writing.  If you get ideas for other scenes, write them down and see where they fit in your outline.
• When the story is finished, use your outline as a guide for your revisions.  Make sure that each scene advances the story in some way.

Pantser

• Brainstorm an interesting character or event and start writing.
• Don’t try to plan ahead on your scenes, just keep typing as ideas come to you.
• If you get an idea that completely changes the story, or a new character shows up out of the blue, go with it.
• Hold off on any revisions until after the story has reached an ending.
• When the story is complete, read through it and evaluate the direction the story has taken.  Eliminate plot threads and characters that went no where and tighten up the remaining material.

Which method works best for you?

This little book is a favorite of mine. You can tell by the many sticky notes I have stuck to the pages marking spots I use frequently.  It has short chapters full of specific exercises and advice on how to analyze and improve your writing.  It has huge appeal for an analytic writer like myself.

How It’s Put Together:  This book is a collection of 79 very short chapters on a variety of subjects – character, editing, writing scenes, word choice, creativity, pacing, and dialogue, to name a few.  Each subject is covered in several chapters, but they are laid out randomly.  A chapter on getting published is followed by one on dialogue, for example.  I’ve read other reviews of the book which criticize this particular feature.

For my own use, I rather like how the book is structured.  It allows me to focus on individual snippets of information, say a short vignette on how to avoid writing bad dialogue, rather than being faced with a longer chapter on dialogue that has multiple points that I must then sort through.  The sorting has been pre-done for me and everything is neatly packaged in chapters of 2-4 pages with a single point to make.  The short chapters are easy to consume in a brief sitting.  You might say that the book has been formatted for the busy schedules and short attention span of the newer generations.

Another feature that I adore are the graphs and charts that Smith uses throughout.  I love to analyze things and he provides different methods of analyzing your writing from the pacing in your novel to the intensity of your scenes.  If you’re more of a technical writer, you’ll get a kick out of trying the different analysis techniques.

How It Helped Me: I have used many of the tools and techniques included in this book. One of my favorites and very useful – the 10-Scene Structure. 

You begin the 10-Scene Structure by sketching out five scenes – the Opener, the Point of No Return Complication, a Major Complication, the Closer (also known as the Climax) and the Ending.  These are the major highlights of your book. Once you have those significant events in place, you go back and add in the five other major scenes (more complications) that help you move from the beginning of the story to the end.  At the end, you have a good roadmap for where your story is headed and the high points (or low points) to hit along the way.

Such an easy method for laying out a novel.  I’ve plotted two novels so far using the 10-Scene Structure and it made the process a lot easier.  The best part is that it doesn’t take away your freedom to be spontaneous during the writing process.  You can still throw in an unexpected scene, event or character.  The 10-Scene Structure just helps you keep on the path to the end of the novel. It doesn’t prevent you from taking the scenic route or complete detours off the main path.

One other item from Smith’s book was a huge eye-opener for me - ”Story is what happens to people.”  A light bulb went on over my head when I read that sentence.  In thinking about my own reading habits, I don’t read a book for the events in it.  I read a book to see how characters, how individuals handle things that happen to them.  How does a woman handle a betrayal that tears her marriage apart?  How does a farm boy handle the responsibility of saving his village or his kingdom?  How does a police detective handle a crime wave when he’s dealing with his own personal problems?  I want to know about the people in the stories and how they get through the strange, sad, horrific, or unusual things that happen in their lives.  And that’s what I should focus on when I’m writing my own stories.  Great advice from a terrific little book.

Who Can Benefit From Reading It: This book is probably most useful for the intermediate writer–the one who has written some short stories or a novel and is looking for ways to improve her writing and story. A beginning writer can certainly use the information in this book, but would need to be careful not to get caught up in the techniques and processes to the exclusion of actually writing their own story.

If you’ve completed a few pieces and are looking for something to take your writing to the next level, try The Writer’s Little Helper.  It’ll keep you coming back for a long time to mine all the gems included in it.