July 6: Plotting and Planning
One of the ways I feel like beginning writers (and even farther on writers) are failed is that so much of teaching and advice focuses on getting down that quick and dirty draft. Writers are told to revise, but not really told that it's a separate skill. That most ideas won't come fully formed and so you have to develop a process for that too. And most instinctively don't find outlining or planning that helpful at first, because no one explains different ways to approach it. Reading Save the Cat is great, but it feels a) a little prescriptive for my taste and b) like it makes it harder to develop that connection with your subconscious, your gut steering you toward your story. The story only you can tell.
Whenever I post a photo or about myself plotting, which I do these days with a big wall or cork board and index cards, someone asks about the method. I'm obviously not inventing anything new here, and I came to this after writing many, many books. In fact, I came to outline after writing a few. Before that, I wrote messy drafts and then did intense revisions. Now my book shapes tend to be better, so my revisions are deep but not as intense (which is kind of a shame, honestly, because I feel like revising is my core strength as a writer -- though saying that, I realize I just do more revision up front when I'm making decisions on structure and shape).
I learned how to plot/outline in advance and stick more or less to it by writing IP -- the Lois Lane books and Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds. I wrote a bit about how I approach that and some other things I've learned for Uncanny Magazine. To sum up, when you're writing IP, it is best for everyone if you can describe the book you're going to write as precisely as possible. There will always be things that change and shift to a greater or lesser extent, but going off what you've proposed tends to lead to tears. So, I learned quickly. I believe plot and character are hand in glove. If you can switch out the main character and have the same story, then something is badly wrong. I start with character and then I begin to let them move through the story by the cards. I know the tone. I know the essential things of the story. For the Lois Lane books, I wrote a chapter by chapter narrative outline. I started using index cards for Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds -- I'd done the initial proposal as a chapter by chapter narrative outline just as for Lois Lane, but I had a week to revise the book and I knew I needed to be surgically precise about it. So I made my first giant wall of cards, detailing exactly what changes needed to happen where and putting stickers on them so I would not despair that I couldn't finish in time.
(this is my finished outline for Mr & Mrs Witch, which is a deceptively straightforward story with a complicated structure and this may have saved me months -- at the Lexington Writer's Room, of course; once I was done, I entered each card onto chapter notes in Scrivener so someone else could use it next!))
The important thing there is your process evolves and changes over time. You should be open to that, and not resist it. You do what feels right for the book, but it's worth challenging yourself to try new things as you do this more.
If you're scared of outlining or it hasn't worked for you, here's a possible starting point.
The other day, I was helping a newer writer at the Lexington Writer's Room who wanted to give the big outlining board a try. I advised her not to start just throwing up index cards first. Again, I feel like when we teach or share, we often skip the beginning step -- the crucial preparation step. So one way to start outlining is to make a list of everything you know you want in the story or already know about it -- this can be characters, ideas, images, themes, moments. I suggested she do this on a large sized pad of paper. Eventually, these things will begin to feel like waves on the ocean. They'll begin to take on shape and movement and suggest connections between them, the tides that will pull them together and give them shape, aka form them into a story. That's when you can begin to plot. I go chapter by chapter, color coding by character. Or maybe by timeline. There's no right or wrong way, but I think it's worth giving this method a shot because building something outside your head helps make it feel real. It puts you out there in the ocean in the middle of the waves, instead of way up at the top of the beach trying to make out what's down there at the shoreline. (I apologize for this tortured metaphor.) I know I'm going in the right direction when it looks right to me.
Maybe you go through the whole story -- I do and then at some point I'll go back and change things or tweak -- or maybe you just do it in chunks, just as far as your eye can see ahead. What this does for you is help identify some structural problems, or show where you aren't sure of your character yet, but that's just extra. What it really does is keep you from stalling. When I make a chapter card, I know why that chapter exists and what larger thing has to happen in it. Rarely have I plotted it in great detail, though. So when I sit down to write, and I know what I'm writing, then my brain is free to come up with better ways FOR it to happen. I don't have to come up with what's happening and how. For me, this was a revelation. For you, it may not work at all. But if you're curious about outlining, this might be a way to try it out.
And now, some news!
Reminder Not Your Average Hot Guy (Oct. 5) is up on Netgalley and Edelweiss for reviewers and other book professionals!
Speaking of which, I was delighted when Publishers Weekly named it as one of the Top Ten romances coming this fall in their recent fall preview issue (especially given the AMAZING books that surround it)!
I have joined TikTok as @gwendabond, and I'm going to answer questions about outlining over there (and I've already given some champagne recs), so if you're there, follow and ask!
I was on Andie J. Christopher's Drunk (Romance) History last week -- you can catch it on IG (somewhat NSFW discussion of Batman).
I'm running a little birthday fundraiser for my beloved Lexington Writer's Room over on Facebook!
I'll be doing an event July 22 with David Bell, but I don't have all the details yet. See next newsletter.
More soon, friends! Preordering makes me happy!