LM requested a post on “speeding up a novel planning process re: structure, etc.” This one is probably going to be another series, because I have a lot to chew on here, including backwards planning and gardening/explorer planning vs. the more commonly advised three-act-structure planning. First off,
Read more →“No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” – Helmuth von Moltk People in general do not do things completely at random. There may not be much conscious, deliberate planning involved in stumbling out of bed in the morning and getting the coffee or tea started, but
Read more →This is a continuation of the pre-open-mic post on choreography. Last time, I was talking mostly about the macro level – the order things happen in the overall story. This week, I’m going to talk more about the scene level. Choreographing a scene starts with the things
Read more →Kin asked: Any thoughts on how to manage a proliferation of sub-plots and POV’s? Lots. Which is why I’m making this a post rather than a quick answer to a comment. The first thing you need to look at is why you have all those viewpoint characters
Read more →One of the fairly common writing metaphors draws a connection between writing a novel and taking a road trip. You see a lot of comments like “You don’t need to see the entire highway that leads from Chicago to Denver in order to drive to Denver; you
Read more →OK, since there seems to be yet more interest in plot planning and prewriting and how to do it, you get still more posts on the subject. This one is on alternate ways of doing plot-related planning; next one will be on the kind of outline you
Read more →There are a lot of bits of advice floating around for would-be, wannabe, and newbie fiction writers who are having problems getting started. There are currently a plethora of how-to-write books advocating serious advance planning, ranging from detailed outlining systems, to starting with different sets of character
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