TECHNIQUES FOR PLOTTING

I've never really had any techniques for plotting. Each of my books seems to have grown differently, usually organically.

Sometimes I have set scenes out on cards and shuffled them around a bit - I did Wasted like that, and the novel I've just finished: Brutal Eyes. (FYI, this is an ultra-gritty, shocking, modern YA novel. If Fleshmarket was about gruesome poverty, shocking conditions and brutal behaviour in the early 19th Century, Brutal Eyes is about gruesome poverty, shocking conditions and brutal behaviour in London, today, under our noses.) Anyway, I digress.

Sometimes I have launched straight into a plot without any planning at all. The Highwayman's Footsteps was an example -  my editor phoned to ask what I wanted to write next and we came up with, "It'll be an adventure about highwaymen," and that afternoon I wrote the first chapter.

Sometimes I mull over things for ages in my head. Sleepwalking and The Passionflower Massacre were two examples.

But I would like to plot and plan in a more organised fashion and I know some people have excellent methods. I have recently found two that I'm drawn towards so I bring them to you now.

Here is a pretty good explanation of the basic elements of a plot, by Glen Strathy. I've seen the same thing in a different format elsewhere and I can't remember where it first came from - perhaps someone can enlighten me? I spent some time playing around with these steps for my WIP and it threw up some useful directions. [Edited to add: Glen says this is from a theory by Melanie Anne Phillips and Chris Huntley. Thanks, Glen!]

I also like the idea behind the Snowflake method of Randy Ingermanson at AdvancedFiction. Specifically I suggest you scroll down to his Ten Steps of Design.

But here's the most important bit of his advice, and it's always been my advice, too: "...a lot of people find it useful. But you may not, and that's fine by me. Look it over, decide what might work for you, and ignore the rest!"

It's so important to do what works for you. I can't stand it when people tell writers what writing method they should use. All that matters is the result.

Don't forget my points about goals and obstacles in this post here.


I'd love to hear any plotting methods you've found work for you.

Think the tone of this blog has suddenly gone very straight and serious? I am just settling you down in time for the Very Important Interview that is coming on publication day on Wednesday... Be prepared.

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

Random or chance events happen often in real life. This does not mean that you can easily use them in fiction. If they seem too convenient for the plot, your reader will believe you put them there for convenience, because you couldn't think of anything better, and he will not be convinced. The thing is that it is not enough that a certain thing could happen: the reader must believe that it would and did in this story. There are many extraordinary things that happen in real life about which one says, “If you wrote that in a story, they’d never believe you.” Yep, sadly, it’s true.


It pains me to say that I fell foul of this while writing Wasted. There’s a scene where a pigeon comes smashing through a window. One young reader said she hadn’t believed that bit. It was no excuse that I could truthfully say that this has happened to me twice: the fact is that I’d failed to convince that reader that it would happen. Slapped wrist.

As a writer you have to use your skill to lull the reader into a sense in which he will believe everything you say. Just as there's a body language for lying in real life, there's a body language for writing fiction which casts a spell over readers. You have to sustain it, gently hypnotising them into belief, but any lapse on your part will jerk them back into the world and they will remember that you are only an author making things up. It would be like a hypnotist who suddenly sneezes.

These are the keys to making your reader believe in everything you say:

• consistency of character
• consistency of voice
• no sudden introduction of a new device that has not already been trailed
• no tricks, no messing around with the reader
• no "because I say so" - the event must seem as though it was causally determined, not pulled out of the hat as a last desperate attempt by the writer
• no laziness - no omission of necessary detail to build the context for your device

This, to me, is the whole magic and beauty of telling stories: the mysterious thing that our brains do to fiction, where we will believe the impossible and yet disbelieve the perfectly ordinary. The skill is in getting that right.

And unfortunately for us as writers, sometimes the truth is stranger, more interesting and more convenient than fiction.

GOALS AND OBSTACLES DRIVING YOUR PLOT

Every novel needs goals and obstacles. Or, rather, the main character does. So, I thought I'd offer you a practical lesson in this, in case it's something you haven't properly thought through. It may not just be the main character who needs goals and obstacles - there may be a secondary (and tertiary) character to focus on, too, though it's fair to say that minor characters don't have to have major goals and obstacles, or not obviously.

Ask yourself some questions:

1. Is my MC's goal interesting and important enough for this genre and for the readers I aim to snare? For example, the MC being desperate to own a dog might be sufficient goal for a gentle book for six-year-olds but not for most other readers. (Though it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that a good writer could create an exciting story out of this premise, by adding a great deal of extra interest.)
2. Have I put sufficient obstacles in the way of this goal? Have I paced them well, increasing suspense? Do the obstacles hang together within the story, rather than being completely random-seeming?
3. Do my readers care sufficiently about my MC that they are desperate for him or her to achieve the goal? The creation of a rounded character who we have strong feelings about is essential to keeping us reading. We must care and believe.
4. Have I created enough complexity by having more than one goal, and perhaps by running a sub-plot which will conflict and even become part of the obstacles? Secondary characters can be very useful in this. 

Let's look at different types of obstacle. They can be:

• caused by the MC's own mistake
• caused by the MC's enemy
• caused by a secondary character accidentally getting in the way
• caused by external influences
• caused completely by accident - don't overdo these or you'll end up with a mishmash of things and the reader will think you're just making it up as you go along. Which of course you are, but not in a good way. 

Obstacles should be:

• interesting
• relevant
• congruous
• sometimes seeming insurmountable
• frustrating for the reader but not too frustrating - you don't want the reader screaming at you. Much.
• generally increasing as the MC reaches the goal
• overcome at just the right speed, generating the amount of suspense you want. Too quick and it's a let-down; too slow and it can become frustrating.

One of the problems I most often see in aspiring writers' work is lack of focus on the goal and the obstacles, lack of real effort to ensure that this goal is genuinely interesting and exciting for the reader. You must define and sharpen the goal and obstacles otherwise your story becomes a walk in the park instead of the gripping adventure it usually needs to be.

So, leap out at your MC and give him the shock of his life. But make the readers suspect you're going to leap out, so that the reader hangs around, fingers over his eyes, hardly daring to read on and yet being unable to stop.

Get the goals and obstacles right and you end up with a novel that is likely also to have suspense, pace and narrative thrust. And most novels benefit from an awful lot more narrative thrust than I see in most unpublished (and some published) work. In fact, it's one of the main things I'll be talking about in my workshops and talks over the next months - including at the York Festival of Writing.

Talking of workshops, there are no spaces left at my What's Wrong With your Manuscript evening in Edinburgh but there ARE spaces on the Secrets of Writing for Children and Teenagers one. If you come to that, you will get an invitation to the launch party!