\nOn September 26, 2012, Courtney Arzu wrote, I’m an extremely young author…But I would like to know how to set up a story\/novel. I can begin a story but I can’t seem to finish because I haven’t thought it out. I don’t know what I’m going to do, what the main climax is going to be or how I’m going to end it. I just wanted to ask: What “outline” would be best for creating the plot? I’ve tried multiple things, but I always end up writing halfway through and get stuck at my mid point. I don’t like writing blindly but that’s the only way I seem to know how to do. I have extreme difficulty with plot, supreme extreme difficulty and was simply wondering what to do.<\/i>
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\nI’ve read your only Planning one, and I don’t seem to click with it. I’m an odd one. As I’m so young, and just trying to kick start myself into writing. I have been telling stories since I was able to talk and I love it. I read everything I could get my hands on. By nine years old, I was in adult fiction. It wasn’t enough. I started to write my own stories, yet I could never finish one because writer’s block would poise itself in the middle of a sentence somewhere.<\/i>
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\nWhen I’m writing, I write tons but when I’m not, I have no ideas. A story of mine has fallen into the humor category simply because I’m filling space. I’m going to go back and edit it out but I haven’t a clue how to plan ahead. It’s a bad trait of mine and I do hope I’ll figure it out but to me the light is way at the other end of the tunnel, a couple hundred miles and I can’t quite tell if I’m going to get there before a train comes barreling in my direction.<\/i><\/p>\n
Courtney\u2019s question spurred this response from Maia: I started loads of stories and then never finished them b\/c the plots got too complicated and I couldn’t see where they were going…so before I even start writing now, I write out the entire plot using bullet points. It’s very useful – it keeps you on track but isn’t so strict that I can’t add things here and there and often stories have taken off by themselves outside the confines of their structure.<\/i>
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\nThe light in the tunnel is nearer than you think, and fortunately trains don’t happen along very often.<\/i><\/p>\n
And this from writeforfun: I always force myself to write a roughly one page summary of the story before I start writing, because once I’m writing, I have to know where I’m going. If I can’t write the whole summary, including the climax and end, then I think about it and write an idea for an ending, even if it’s a bad one, so that I have a road map for what I’m writing. Some things will change, but that helps me a lot. Just a suggestion.<\/i><\/p>\n
These are great suggestions – planning tips for people who don\u2019t completely outline. But if you\u2019d like to learn one approach to really outlining, you might enjoy Walter Dean Myers\u2019 book Just Write: Here’s How<\/i>.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t outline, but I usually have an idea of the ending, and I write toward it. Often the golden coin of the ending is clutched in the fist of the beginning. The beginning introduces a problem, which the ending will solve, one way or another, happily or not. In Ella Enchanted<\/i> the problem of Ella\u2019s curse is introduced in the first chapter, and the end is right there, too, the lifting of the curse, or if the book turned out to be a tragedy, the certainty that Ella would never be free. What I wrote in between were instances, as Ella\u2019s life progresses, of the burden of the curse, her attempts to save herself, and the life she manages to live while her suffering goes on (the budding relationship with Char, her friendship with Areida, the continuing support of Mandy).<\/p>\n
So we can look at our beginning and ask what problem it\u2019s posing, and then what the possible solutions are. Say we start with an alien invasion. We need to ask lots of questions about the aliens until we discover what the central question is that the beginning is posing. Are these good or evil aliens? How much more advanced are they than we are? What are their intentions toward us? Let\u2019s say they\u2019re neither evil nor good; they\u2019re traders, and we have something valuable that they can trade. Say it\u2019s lumber. They want our trees, and they have marvels to give us in exchange, but we need our trees, too, and yet the marvels are tempting. Some powerful people will make enormous fortunes from the alien goods if we do trade. Now we have the problem, and the ending is sewn up inside it: whether or not Earth will be stripped of trees.<\/p>\n
Suppose we decide that the planet will keep its trees. That\u2019s the way we want it to come out. How are we going to get there? Who\u2019s going to be our MC or our MCs? Who will represent the aliens? What other characters do we need? From this we can build our summary. And then we can start working out scenes.<\/p>\n
A fascinating but disturbing tale of an alien invasion is Arthur C. Clarke\u2019s Childhood\u2019s End<\/i>, which takes the alien theme in a surprising direction. It\u2019s a book for adults but if I remember right it should be fine for kids twelve and up. Check with a librarian to be sure.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve been reading the blog for a while you know I\u2019m a seat-of-the-pants writer. I set off without much more than a beginning and a dim idea for the end. I\u2019m familiar with the kind of distress that Courtney describes. The difference between us is experience, which may be annoying if you\u2019re just starting out. Sorry! I\u2019ve gotten through getting lost before and I\u2019m pretty sure I can do it again. I cobble a story together from the threads I follow, and then in revision I tighten and tighten. So part of the solution is tolerance for your own writing style, which may be organized or may be messy. And another part may be tolerance for imperfection. First drafts are not supposed to be good. Good comes later, in revision.<\/p>\n
As I\u2019ve mentioned here, I\u2019ve been working on a book based on the blog, which I just sent off to my editor on Monday. Much of it comes from the blog, but some I wrote for the book. Below is part of a plotting chapter. Although bits may be elsewhere here on the blog, I think at least some is new, and if not new, it all bears repeating:<\/p>\n
Try writing a short summary of each scene that you have on an index card, then spread them out and move them around, out of their original sequence. You can even bring in scenes from other unfinished stories. Edgar in your old story can turn into Garth in the new one with a few personality adjustments. When you think about the characters, do you see new threads that connect them? Does one scene suggest itself as a fresh beginning? Another as the end? If, after rearranging, your story flows except for a few scenes that stubbornly don\u2019t fit in anywhere, you can cut them but save them in case you find a use for them when you revise or in some future project.<\/p>\n
If you discover that the cards move you farther along but then you bog down, you can lay them out again starting with the point where you got stuck – you don\u2019t have to go all the way back to the beginning.<\/p>\n
And here\u2019s a plot exercise you can do in your notes that comes from What If? Writing Exercises for Fiction Writers<\/i> by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter (most of this book is fine for kids, but a few chapters aren\u2019t, so before you use it, show it to a parent). You can use this technique on a new story or an old one. If this is a new story, whenever you\u2019re not sure where to take the story next, ask yourself, What if?<\/i> and write down five options for directions the story might take. Be wild. Be carefree. Anything goes in notes. Don\u2019t even look at what you have till you\u2019re done.<\/p>\n
It might go like this: My MC is at a party and feeling all alone. What if<\/i> she sees a framed photo of her long-lost brother on the mantelpiece? What if<\/i> she starts writing on a wall of the living room where the party is happening? What if<\/i> she decides the party needs livening up and starts singing? And so on.<\/p>\n
Now look over your list. Suppose two options appeal to you. Write a paragraph about each: what it would mean for your story, how it would take place. Pick the one you like best and return to your story. When you reach the next story decision point, ask What if? again and repeat.<\/p>\n
If you write five possibilities and none pleases you, write three more or five more.<\/p>\n
In an old story that you\u2019ve given up on, ask What If? <\/i>after your last sentence. If that spot doesn\u2019t yield anything interesting, go back to a point where the story was still burning in you and ask the question. When you find a new path, start writing.<\/p>\n
If you find them helpful, use the plotting strategies above for these two prompts:<\/p>\n
\u2219 Write the story about the aliens who want our trees.<\/p>\n
\u2219 Write five more What if?<\/i>\u2019s about the MC who feels alone at the party. Then write the story.<\/p>\n
Have fun, and save what you write!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On September 26, 2012, Courtney Arzu wrote, I’m an extremely young author…But I would like to know how to set up a story\/novel. I can begin a story but I can’t seem to finish because I haven’t thought it out. I don’t know what I’m going to do, what the main climax is going to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[96,15,8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":361,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions\/361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gailcarsonlevine.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}