Many of you have started NaNoWriMo. I wish you the best. May your fingers never flag. May your dreams\u2013if you sleep\u2013deliver scenes and characters. Put them in! May your brain send ideas: the surprising, the wild, even the ordinary\u2013no judgment, just so they generate words. Go, writers, go!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On January 21, 2020, Writing Cat Lover wrote, I was wondering, how do you link things? Like, I, as a pantser, always have trouble with the plot \u2013 and it seems that everything is separate. Any tips on linking everything together so my plot doesn\u2019t die? Any advice would really help!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Several of you responded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Christie V Powell: I think it has to do with linking cause and effect. For example, in my rough draft, I had a teenage daughter of the family run away right before the climax begins, when her father and brother confront angry townspeople. So, in editing, I had to figure out what might have caused the running away, and what consequences running away would have in the story. In this case, I decided that she ran away at this particular moment because her friends warned her that the angry townspeople were gathering against her family. Her father and brother go into town trying to find her, and that\u2019s why they end up in the middle of this dangerous meeting.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve enjoyed following KM Weiland\u2019s blog, and she likes to talk about how story threads need to be linked thematically. The main characters have a Lie they believe about the world, and over the course of the story they learn to reject that Lie and learn a new Truth (for a positive arc story). Each action in the plot takes the characters along that path.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Melissa Mead: Exactly! \u201cThis happened, which caused X, and because of X\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Raina: I\u2019ve had the same problem, and here are some strategies I use:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n As a note, characters can have (and frequently do have) multiple sources of motivation. Maybe the detective visits the hotel, mall, and warehouse to look for clues (motivation: solve the mystery), and then goes to a bar to meet with his crush (motivation: love). These things aren\u2019t necessarily cause and effect, but they\u2019re all \u201ccaused\u201d by the detective\u2019s personality, who he is and what he wants as a person.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Oh, and one more point: coincidence is also a tool you can use, although you shouldn\u2019t use it too often. It\u2019s perfectly okay to have your character randomly stumble into the inciting incident because they were walking on the street and saw\/heard something that propels them into the plot (like the beginning of Cassandra Clare\u2019s City of Bones, where the MC is at a party, just another normal day for her, and sees someone gets murdered, which then leads to her finding out about a secret world of demon hunters). The problem with this is that it\u2019s a passive form of plot progression (where an outside force acts on the MC, rather than have the plot be based around the MC\u2019s actions and their consequences), so you don\u2019t want to use it too often. That\u2019s why you typically don\u2019t see this used beyond the inciting incident. You can also later reveal information that justifies the coincidence or suggests that it wasn\u2019t really a coincidence at all (in the case of CoB, MC was actually the daughter of an ex-demon-hunter-in-exile, and thus she has the ability to see magical things, which was why she saw the murder).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n And since you can continuously edit stories (at least before they\u2019re published), retconning (changing previous events to make them fit with new ones) is a powerful and very useful tool. A new plot point doesn\u2019t fit with the old ones? You can change the old ones! You need your character to do something that doesn\u2019t fit with their personality or motivations? You can change their personality! Granted, you should do so carefully because it\u2019ll change the whole story, but if you don\u2019t like it, you can change your entire story and as long as the change is consistent throughout the entire thing, no one will ever know. I think writers sometimes take that for granted, because I certainly did, until I figured out that other mediums (like role-playing games) aren\u2019t like that.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I love reading everyone\u2019s approaches, because we all get to the same place\u2013story\u2013by different routes. And I\u2019m with Raina on the infinite possibilities of revision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are some approaches that I use that may be helpful:<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even though I\u2019m mostly a pantser, I do need to know the overall problem of my story. At the moment, I\u2019m thinking about my next project, and I\u2019m turning the fairytale \u201cAladdin\u201d over and over in my mind. The problem is the problem, because I\u2019m not sure what that is. Is it the love story with the sultan\u2019s daughter? Defeating the evil magician? Wielding the genies\u2019 magic? If I\u2019m going to go forward, I\u2019ll need to know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Knowing helps with the links. When a scene wants to be written, we can think about how it relates to the problem. If it doesn\u2019t relate, we can explore how it might be shaped so that it does. (This may require a list.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once I\u2019ve figured out the problem, I move onto my characters. What kind of person will my Aladdin need to be to both overcome the problem and struggle with it? Who will the princess be? The genies? What sort of villain will the magician be? These can change, as Raina says, but to get started, I need a preliminary idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Same with the ending. From the start, I need to know where I\u2019m heading. Even pantsers can know that much. The ending is a beacon that lights and guides the writing road. As we write, we can ask ourselves how the scene we\u2019re about to write will move us toward the end, either by throwing up obstacles or by overcoming them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All of these will automatically pull the story together and forge links.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most of my novels are from a single first-person POV, though the Trojan War manuscript I\u2019m revising now is told in the first half by one character and then, several years later, by another. Unity is natural when there\u2019s one teller. The reader reads her thoughts and understands how events connect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But even with multiple POVs, a POV character\u2019s thoughts can pull plot points together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Writing chronologically also creates links, which is similar to the causality that everyone above wrote about. This happened, then that happened\u2013and the reader connects them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve written here about handling flashbacks and backstory, which are fine techniques\u2013please use them at will!\u2013but they do wrench the reader away from the current action and make the linking harder. Even foreshadowing does that. If our story is getting unruly, we can stay in one time zone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lately, from more than one sad experience of losing my way, I do write a very basic outline, a few paragraphs, maybe a page\u2013even though I\u2019m almost intolerably bored by the exercise. Once I start writing, I forget the outline, but it influences me anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I also do a sort of rolling outline sometimes. In my notes, I write about what will come next based on the scene I’ve just written, what arises from it. This may yield bullet points that will carry me through a few more scenes, when I have to regroup again and plan ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we\u2019ve already written, say, fifty pages, that don\u2019t seem to link, we can look them over with a dispassionate eye. We can ask questions about what we have. Is there a problem that seems more pressing than any other? If yes, how can we make it filter into everything else? If not, is there a problem that particularly interests us? Can we punch it up? Which character (or two or three characters, probably no more) interests us most? Can we relate the problem to this character? How might the problem end? We can list possibilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We don\u2019t have to wait until we reach the end to revise. We can reshape our fifty pages and then continue, keeping our eye on the problem and the ending we\u2019re aiming for while remembering that we can change any of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, trust yourself! Trust your mind! Don\u2019t yell at it or poke it. Let it meander and find the connections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are three prompts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Let\u2019s take another fairy tale that continues to confound me: \u201cThe Twelve Dancing Princesses.\u201d The reader is supposed to rejoice at the success of the soldier in figuring out why the princesses wear out their shoes every night, but these young women come out of it without gaining their freedom, and the reader never finds out what\u2019s really up with the underground dancing princes. In my opinion, the story solves the mystery of the shoes, but not the more interesting problems. Decide what the problem is, who the MC is, and what the ending might be, and write the first scene. If you like, keep going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Look at three unrelated articles in your newspaper. Stare at them. Imagine they are somehow linked. Consider what the links might be. If the three don\u2019t yield links, you can add more articles. Find a story in them, with a problem, an MC, and an ending. Write the story as another news article with a banner headline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2022 Personify an inanimate object, a plant, and an animal. Write a paragraph about each, including its personality, problems, backstory, and anything else you think is important. Look at what you have. Did you happen to include common elements that you can expand? If not, look for connections. Decide which of the three will be your MC, which your villain (if you need a villain). Write a first scene. If you like, keep going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Have fun, and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Many of you have started NaNoWriMo. I wish you the best. May your fingers never flag. May your dreams\u2013if you sleep\u2013deliver scenes and characters. Put them in! May your brain send ideas: the surprising, the wild, even the ordinary\u2013no judgment, just so they generate words. Go, writers, go! 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