In my newsletter, I do a lot of case studies on writers. I like to study the writing process of other writers. Even though we’re all unique and we have our own unique process for writing, there is sometimes overlap.

For example, I prefer to outline my plot before I write. So do a lot of other writers.

But we don’t outline exactly the same and that’s the fun part. What technique or tip can I pick up from another writer that makes my plotting better? I’m always looking for what I can steal and incorporate into my own process.

Here are some interesting variations on plotting.

Robert Crais

Robert starts a book with approximately three months of outlining and general notes. He uses the time to develop the characters and then the story line. “The story requires the most work. I have to live with the story for months. I’m not one of those writers who can just begin typing on paper. I couldn’t keep all the clues straight if I didn’t plan it all out.”

Janet Evanovich

Janet generally creates a brief outline before beginning a new book, with one or two sentences about what will happen in each chapter.

She also uses storyboarding to map out the action in her stories. “I have a huge white dry-erase board that hangs on the wall in my office. I’ve already decided who the villain is going to be; I’ve decided what the crime is, and how the book is going to end. So now I map out in a couple of sentences what the physical action is going to be– that is, the action that is going to promote the crime line of the book. Every now and then, I’ll add what is going to happen in Stephanie’s romantic relationship and sketch in the secondary plot information as well.”

Lois McMaster Bujold

Lois makes a broad section outline, what she calls “the event horizon”, which is how far she can see to write until she has to stop and make up some more. This is usually between one and three chapters. She gets mental pictures of what scenes should go in the next chapter and she pushes them around until they slot into sequence. She then pulls out the next scene and outlines it closely, as a kind of messy first draft. She choreographs dialogue especially carefully.

She takes her notes to the computer and types up the actual scene. She continues this process until she gets to the end of the chapter and her brain is out of ideas. Then it is back to the outlining for the next scene. Each scene she writes has the potential of changing what comes next in the story, so she re-outlines constantly.

It’s All Plotting, But…

Robert outlines meticulously so that every clue and detail is known before he starts writing.

Janet jots down a couple of sentences for each chapter, using a storyboard to track the action.

Lois plots just enough for a couple of chapters at a time.

Three successful writers. Three different variations on outlining and plotting.

Your Turn

Do you outline your novel before you start writing? What’s your process like?

When I was younger, I was in love with Jonathan Brandis. You might remember him from some of his movies (Neverending Story II, Sidekicks, Ladybugs) or from SeaQuest DSV (my favorite).

As I grew up, I lost track of his career. In 2005 something reminded me of him and I went to the Internet to see what he was up to. I found out that he had committed suicide in 2003.

I was devastated. Why would a young man of such promise do such a thing? I couldn’t understand it.

As I searched the internet for more information I came across dozens of websites devoted to him from fans still grieving over his loss.

He was loved and admired by so many. How did he not see that? Would he still have committed suicide if he had known?

Out of these questions came a story of a young man, lonely, depressed and thinking of ending his life, and the young woman who makes him see how many people care for him, despite her own feelings of loneliness and despair. In the end, they save each other.

As I wrote I was consumed with my grief and the story spilled onto the page. I couldn’t get it out fast enough.

When it was done, I sent the story to my beta reader, my sister, Ronda.

It made her cry.

As writers, we know that good stories evoke emotions in readers. I believe that feeling the emotion as you’re writing can enhance the words on the page.

Getting Emotions Onto the Page

Start with remembering a time when you experienced a similar emotion. A time when you were sad or angry or elated. Get the memory of that time firmly in your mind and then start writing.

If you’re having trouble getting into the right frame of mind, sometimes music can help set a mood.

I think Robert Frost captured it best:
“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”

What do you do to get real emotions into your writing?

It’s nearly November and time for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). This is the month where thousands of people tackle the challenge of writing 50,000 words in just 30 days.

To get you started, check out these posts on getting prepared for NaNo from last year:

Creating your characters

Laying out your initial plot

Getting into the proper mindset for NaNo

Writing tips to help you reach 50,000 words

Training yourself to write FAST

How to have fun while doing NaNo

Some tools to use for NaNo

Download a free copy of the NaNoWriMo Survival Guide from Lazette Gifford

Read a review of No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty (founder of NaNo)

To track your progress for NaNo, here’s an updated copy of the tracking spreadsheet originally created by Eric Benson. This is in Open Office format, but you should be able to open it in other spreadsheet programs, as well.

You can sign up to participate in NaNo at their website, www.nanowrimo.org. It’s totally free.

I’ll be participating as well. Got a science fiction novel that I want to get through the first draft. You can follow my progress by adding me as a Writing Buddy. Or follow me on Twitter as I’ll be reporting my progress there, as well.

Time once again for our round up of online writing classes and workshops happening in November. If you’re not participating in NaNoWriMo, sign up for one of these low-cost classes and learn something about writing this month.

Surviving Trauma – Learn the characteristics of resiliency and the secrets of survival from numerous case studies of individuals who have survived violent trauma including concentration camps in Germany, genocide in Rwanda, violent crime, spinal injury, childhood abuse, etc.

Ignite Your Fiction – Learn how to examine and write succinct, vivid examples of Exposition, Description, Narration/Summary, and Action-Dialogue. The concept of pacing in character and plot will be stressed as well as development of the writer’s own “voice.”

Mastering Point of View – How truly understanding and mastering point of view can fix an ailing manuscript, and turn a decent but lackluster novel into a page-turner.

Scottish Castles of the 12th and 13th Centuries – Learn about the castles, king and court, the nobility, and calendar feasts and pastimes.

The “W” Plot…or The Other White Meat for Plotters – Learn how to use the “W” plotting technique tol uncover the skeleton of your own novel. Whatever your genre, not only will you have the tools you need to finish plotting your story using the “W”, you’ll know how to use it to write the synopsis we all love to hate…all without writing one word of the novel.

Breaking Procedural Rules – Learn the facts about legal procedures and how they can go awry, including how to stir in entrapment, illegal searches, tainted evidence, tampered juries, and badgered witnesses.

Inner Drives: Create Characters Using the Centers of Motivation (Chakras) – Each physical-psychological-philosophical Chakra has unique hopes, fears, strengths, weakness, actions, speech styles, and more that you can use to define and explore your characters.

Fiction to Freelance Writing – Discover how writing articles can boost their writing career regardless of their publishing status. Get insider tips on how to research a publication’s slant, learn the secrets of twisting a topic to generate great article ideas, where to find the perfect markets for those ideas and the easy (and painless, honest!) way to create the perfect query letter.

Day in the Life: Archaeologists – Learn about the difference between contract work, academia, and wwashbuckling; the basic steps in what to do if you want to dig something; the importance of permission and ethics (no Indiana Jones-style looting); how to interpret archaeological sites from the ground up.

Heightening Conflict Through the Fatal Flaw & Shadow – Learn how the “triangle” technique can unveil your character’s suppressed or shadow traits, which will emerge as the character struggles to overcome a deeply hidden flaw.

Online Critique Group – Receive feedback on six crucial components (concept, character development, plot, narrative, dialogue and research) of whatever you’re currently writing with the goal of helping you continue the development/rewrite process independently.

Here is the fourth set of links to Louise Doughty’s columns on A Novel in a Year. The columns are available on The Daily Telegraph website, though they are deep in the archives, and have also been gathered together and published in a book, A Novel in a Year: From First Page to Last in 52 Weeks, available through Amazon.

Week 37 – Metaphors can be dangerous: use sparingly, or they blow up in your face

Week 38 – Be careful not to slow your story down with too much clumsy exposition

Week 39 – Dialogue can be tricky but it is a powerful tool for characterisation

Week 40 – For a novel, you need a plot – and that means events, change and conflict

Week 41 – Dialogue may be easy to write reams of, but make sure it adds to the plot

Week 42 – Guard against climaxitis with careful positioning of drama and consequence

Week 43 – Step back, then zoom in again with greater understanding

Week 44 – Choose your novel’s narrator with care: that is the voice the reader hears

Week 45 – You know that favourite bit of writing? Time to leave it out for the wolves

Week 46 – Ask a fellow writer for advice, not your nearest and dearest

Week 47 – Develop your own inner critic, and be grateful for advice

Week 48 – If you are stuck in the middle, be bold, leap forward and write the ending

Week 49 – An ending will come, and when it does it will be obvious

Week 50 – There comes a time when the donkey work must be done

Week 51 – Take a clear-eyed look at your year ahead as a writer

Week 52 – This was the year that we wrote

Pick up your copy of A Novel in a Year: From First Page to Last in 52 Weeks and visit Louise’s website to learn more about her novels.

Here is the third set of links to Louise Doughty’s columns on A Novel in a Year. The columns are available on The Daily Telegraph website, though they are deep in the archives, and have also been gathered together and published in a book, A Novel in a Year: From First Page to Last in 52 Weeks, available through Amazon.

Week 25 – Think about what your character wants from life, and what stands in his way

Week 26 – This is the time to write recklessly, before we pull it all together

Week 27 – Give your characters good obstacles to help them move forward

Week 28 – If your novel is going nowhere, make a real journey towards your character

Week 29 – Do you know what your character looks like? Visualise telling details

Week 30 – Assemble all the bits and pieces of your work and stand back for a moment

Week 31 – Good character description always tells us something important

Week 32 – Writer’s block can strike at any time – get through it by reading

Week 33 – Learn the trick of trimming as you go, and cut out the adverbs and adjectives

Week 34 – Write without inhibition but edit with precision

Week 35 – Keep prose tight at the start of your novel, so as to draw the reader in

Week 36 – Mind your language: sex, swearing and violence can be a turn-off to readers

Next up, the last set of twelve weeks of Novel in a Year columns.

Pick up your copy of A Novel in a Year: From First Page to Last in 52 Weeks and visit Louise’s website to learn more about her novels.

Here is the second set of links to Louise Doughty’s columns on A Novel in a Year. The columns are available on The Daily Telegraph website, though they are deep in the archives, and have also been gathered together and published in a book, A Novel in a Year: From First Page to Last in 52 Weeks, available through Amazon.

Week 13 – Go back in time to discover an unfamiliar character to make your own

Week 14 – The ideas stage is crucial, but soon you must start on the novel proper

Week 15 – You need not know everything about the past to conjure up another era

Week 16 – Writing gets easier once you know your allies and banish your enemies

Week 17 – Define exactly what your novel’s about, and you might surprise yourself

Week 18 – Don’t mistake your central idea for the novel itself

Week 19 – Write a CV for your characters, then your plot will follow

Week 20 – Clear your diary for the next 10 weeks and take a scattergun approach to writing

Week 21 – Imagine what your character likes to eat, and how he might break a thumb

Week 22 – Don’t listen to the critics in your head, rather concentrate on getting the words on the page

Week 23 – Use your characters’ reactions to incidents to reveal what makes them tick

Week 24 – Even deleted scenes or characters play a part

Next up, the third set of twelve weeks of Novel in a Year columns.

Pick up your copy of A Novel in a Year: From First Page to Last in 52 Weeks and visit Louise’s website to learn more about her novels.

Louise Doughty, a novelist and columnist for the Daily Telegraph, wrote a series of columns in 2006 about how to write a novel over the course of a year. She offered advice from her own writing life as well as exercises to help a new writer develop the techniques and craft necessary for writing a novel. The response to the columns was overwhelming and Louise included many responses to the exercises from her readers in her columns.

The columns are available on The Daily Telegraph website, though they are deep in the archives, and have also been gathered together and published in a book, A Novel in a Year: From First Page to Last in 52 Weeks, available through Amazon.

Week 1 – Take up a notebook and pen, and write one sentence

Week 2 – Some simple advice: read

Week 3 – Keep your first line simple, serious and avoid the jokey one-liners

Week 4 – Your greatest asset at this stage is passion, so enjoy it and exploit it

Week 5 – Having an endless fascination with other people is essential for writing

Week 6 – Start by excavating your own secrets, and then you can try turning them into fiction

Week 7 – Even a small accident can be turned into something consequential

Week 8 – It is vital to set aside a time and place where you can write undisturbed

Week 9 – Feeling trapped, either physically or emotionally, can provide fertile ground for dramatic writing

Week 10 – Don’t be afraid of dramatic subjects — be bold

Week 11 – Invent a character whose voice is not at all like your own

Week 12 – An arbitrary change to your original idea can have unexpected benefits

Next up, the next twelve weeks of Novel in a Year columns.

Pick up your copy of A Novel in a Year: From First Page to Last in 52 Weeks and visit Louise’s website to learn more about her novels.

Okay, so maybe TV can’t actually write your short stories for you, but it can provide a structure to use for writing a short story.

The Intro – 1st 10 Minutes

Introduce the characters and the situation. Start your story on the day that is different for the characters (or just shortly before the moment that is different).

My example using one of my favorite TV shows, The A-Team:

A young woman, Debbie the Daughter, has an injured father, Dad, who is now unable to take care of their farm. Bad Bart the Neighbor wants to buy them out, but is offering very little money for the farm. He is pushy and insistent and frightens Debbie a bit. She tries to get some other farmers in the area to help out, but they are intimidated by Bad Bart. Debbie decides to get outside help to convince Bad Bart to leave them alone.

Complications – 2nd 15 Minutes

Start a new scene – show the characters trying something to resolve the problem, but it doesn’t work and the situation gets worse.

Debbie contacts the A-Team and has them meet her at the farm. They meet Debbie and Dad, but explain that they don’t think they can be of much help. Bad Bart shows up at the farm and tries to intimidate Debbie and Dad again. The A-Team stands up to him and he leaves, vowing to get the farm one way or another. The A-Team decides to stick around.

More Complications – 3rd 15 Minutes

New scene – the characters try something else to resolve the problem and it just gets worse.

The team hangs out around the farm, helping with the chores. That night, the barn catches fire and all the farm tractors are destroyed in the blaze, crippling their ability to work in the fields. The daughter and team know that Bad Bart is responsible, but can’t prove it to the local sheriff, so he can’t do anything to help.

Daughter goes to the bank to get a loan to rebuild the barn and buy new equipment, and is told the farm is in default on its loans and will be foreclosed if the back payments aren’t paid by tomorrow. There is no money, so Debbie is sure they will lose the farm.

The Climax – 4th 15 Minutes

The climax of the show/story – characters make one final push to resolve the problem, face off with the villain and win the day.

One member of the A-Team visits Bad Bart the Neighbor and announces that Debbie and Dad have agreed to sell the farm, so Debbie can take Dad to Florida to recuperate, if Bad Bart will bring the money in cash to the farm the next morning. He agrees.

He arrives the next morning with his henchmen, but says that the price he’s willing to pay has been lowered considerably, since he knows about the pending foreclosure. He offers $1 for the farm and he’ll let Dad, Debbie and the team leave quietly.

Hannibal pretends to have a change of heart, stating that his team just got involved in the situation because of a girl with a pretty face. They don’t want any trouble and will leave, so Bad Bart has clear access to the farm. Hannibal gets Bad Bart to confess to starting the barn fire and several other acts of sabotage around the ranch over the last few months. Eventually, Bad Bart realizes he’s been set up and his confession has been videotaped. He orders his men to attack and get the tape back.

The A-team withdraws into the house, while Bad Bart and his men surround the house, and attempt to get inside. The team quickly makes weapons out of household materials and fights off Bad Bart’s gang, just as the sheriff arrives and arrests Bad Bart and his men for various crimes, including the attack on Dad and Debbie. Hannibal hands over the videotape confession to the sheriff.

The Closing – Last 5 Minutes

Final short scene that ties up any remaining loose ends and leaves the readers smiling (or at least satisfied that everything ended well for the characters).

Debbie and Dad thank the A-Team for their help and announce that the bank has extended the farm loans because of the evidence of Bad Bart’s sabotage. The other farmers in the community heard about Bad Bart’s arrest and have offered their time and equipment until Dad is back on his feet. Debbie tries to give money to the A-Team, but they refuse it and ride off into the sunset.

Okay, so it’s a bit corny, but you get the picture. You could apply a similar structure to a humorous or dramatic story- introduce the characters and situation, throw in some complications, build to the climax and then resolve the situation.

Have you ever used a TV show or other form of entertainment as the structure for a story? What did you use and how did it work?

A prologue is an introductory chapter to a novel and it is the subject of some controversy in the writing world.

Here are some reasons why you don’t need a prologue.

• Prologues can distract from the actual story by providing extraneous detail. If the detail was truly needed, why not include it in the actual story?
• Prologues usually include people, places, and things that are long irrelevant by the time the real story starts, like events from 1000 years ago that somehow still have great bearing on your characters today.
• Prologues are often boring info dumps of historical info or worldbuilding that the author felt must be conveyed to the reader. They don’t, really. Take my word for it.
• Prologues are sometimes used by writers who aren’t ready to jump into the actual story, so they “warm up” in the prologue. Stop warming up and throw your characters into the fire already!
• Prologues can delay the reader from meeting the protagonist (if the protag isn’t part of the prologue). I want to meet the important people in the story as soon as possible, so don’t make me wait.
• Prologues are sometimes tacked on to add a scene of suspense at the beginning of the novel, so the reader knows something scary will be happening later. You don’t need a prologue for that. Give me the foreshadowing in the first few chapters of the book.
• Many readers don’t like prologues and skim through them or skip over them, me included.

Do you think your novel absolutely, positively MUST include a prologue? Try this test– take the prologue out of your manuscript and give the manuscript sans prologue to a fresh reader (someone who hasn’t read your novel or heard any of the details of it from you). If the entire plot still makes perfect sense to that reader, then you don’t need the prologue.

Why You Might Need a Prologue

• You have an event in the distant history of the story that affects the present and including it as a flashback in the story slows down the pacing too much.
• You want to provide a certain character’s viewpoint in the prologue and the rest of the story is in a different character’s viewpoint.
• Your prologue relates to a scene at the end of your story and you want to give the reader reason to keep turning the pages to find the answer to the questions raised in the prologue. (As in… how did the characters get into this awful situation that is in the prologue?)
• Even given these possible reasons to include a prologue, I’d still try to find a way to include the prologue material in the story itself. If it really has to be in the story.

If you’re including a prologue, do your readers a favor–keep it short, self-contained and comprehensible.

What are you thoughts on a prologue as a reader and a writer? Do you use them? Skip them?