For the past few months, I’ve been taking you through my process of developing my upcoming Blood of Kings Legends short novel using The Story Equation by Susan May Warren. This story is about Guy and Girl. (I cannot yet share their names because my contracts says I must wait.) I started with creating the main characters and finding their Story Equation in this post. Then I talked about how to use the Enneagram personality types to help you create new characters quickly. Today I’m going to be talking about plot. These three posts are a great way to get yourself ready to try National Novel Writing Month, if you’re planning to participate this year.

For plotting, the first thing I start with is my targeted word count. Since this book is a short novel, my word count is 40,000. That’s half the size of most the books I write, so I need to be careful when plotting to make sure I don’t plan too much. It’s also important for me to keep my habits in mind. My writing tends to grow when I revise. That means I should plan for less, knowing I’ll be adding words.

That said, I opened an old manuscript in Microsoft Word and played around with selecting text until I got an idea of how many pages and chapters fell around the 40k mark. There is no better way to measure my writing than to use my own writing. I did this and discovered that about 13 chapters of my writing falls around 38,000 words.

So, for my 40k novel, knowing my tendency to write light and add more words in the revision stage, I decided to plan for 12 chapters, plot-wise. That will, hopefully, put me at a final word count between 35-36k, which leaves room to add words in the revision stage. That’s roughly 3,000 words a chapter.

This time around, I wanted to use Susan May Warren’s Lindy Hop method of plotting. This comes from Susan’s book The Story Equation (Amazon affiliate link). The book has the following 17 plot points. You can learn all about these plot points in detail in Susan’s amazing book. I highly recommend it for anyone writing a book that contains a romance in the story. To help you understand these beats, I put in parenthesis a brief description/how they match the Save the Cat Beat Sheet and the 3-Act Structure, in general.

Act 1

Life (This is a snapshot of the hero before his journey, living his imperfect life.)

Inciting Incident (Call to adventure. Something changes, and the hero must react.)

The Big Debate (The hero decides what to do. Stay or go?)

The Noble Quest (The hero chooses to accept the adventure ahead.)

Act 2

Attempt (Turning Point 1)

Cost (Is the goal worth it?)

Reward (What he’ll get if he succeeds)

Attempt (They try and fail or have a false victory)

Desire (A glimpse of what he wants. Might even get a small piece of it.)

Midpoint (Man in the mirror moment. Realize what it’s really going to take and set a new goal.)

Act 3 (D=Disappointment, Y= Y in the road)

D – Y (No turning back, Turning Point 2)

D – Y (New mini goal. Still trying to fix the “lie” the old way.)

D – Y (Emotional turning point. Things are working!)

Black Moment Event (Taste of death.)

Act 4

Black Moment Effect (Return to the beginning/their worst nightmare comes true. The lie feels real.)

Epiphany (Truth defeats the lie. Realization of what needs to happen.)

Final Battle (Storm the castle.)

Perfect Ending (Greatest dream realized.)

If I want to write two points of view, I’d need 34 scenes to have a separate scene for each beat and point of view. That can’t happen with only 40k. I’ll need to combine beats, for sure. Normally, with only 12 chapters, I’d be tempted to write only one POV, but since my novel sets up and launches three fantasy romance novels that each have two points of view, I feel like mine needs to have two points of view as well.

To recap, I’ve decided to write a two-POV story that will have 12 chapters, and my final draft should be about 40k words. Since the Lindy Hop plot structure has 17 beats, I will need to combine a few. Also, I think it’s important to stick with one point of view for a full chapter at the start of a story. So I’ll start with each POV character getting their own chapter, then transition into alternating by scenes. With that in mind, here is my “plan.”

Act 1

Chapter 1: GUY’s POV

Opening snapshot of life

Introduce my characters and theme

Chapter 2: GIRL’s POV

Opening snapshot of life

Introduce my characters and theme

Chapter 3A: GUY’s POV

Inciting Incident (Call to adventure. How badly does he want the dream?)

Debate (What should he do? He chooses not to act.)

Chapter 3B: GIRL’s POV

Debate (Did she do the right thing?)

Inciting Incident (Girl’s life changes, and she must act.)

Chapter 3C: GUY’s POV

The Noble Quest (Guy accepts the call to adventure.)

Act 2A

Chapter 4A: GUY’s POV

Chapter 4B: GIRL’s POV

Attempt/Cost

Chapter 5A: GIRL’s POV

Reward

Attempt (Clue points to a new lead.)

Chapter 5A: GUY’s POV

Attempt (Clue points to a new lead.)

Chapter 6A: GIRL’s POV

Desire (A glimpse of what she wants.)

Chapter 6B: GUY’s POV

Midpoint (Man in the mirror moment. Realize what it’s really going to take and set a new goal.)

Act 2B (D=Disappointment, Y= Y in the road)

Chapter 7A: GUY’s POV

D – Y (No turning back, Turning Point 2)

Chapter 7B: GIRL’s POV

D – Y (New mini goal. Still trying to fix the “lie” the old way.)

Chapter 8A: GIRL’s POV

Disappointment (Emotional turning point. Things are working!)

Chapter 8B: GUY’s POV

Disappointment (Emotional turning point. Things are working!)

Chapter 9A: GIRL’s POV

Y in the Road (New decision/Mini turning point.)

Chapter 9B: GUY’s POV

Black Moment Event (Taste of death.)

Act 3

Chapter 10A: GIRL’s POV

Black Moment Effect (Return to the beginning/their worst nightmare comes true. The lie feels real.)

Chapter 10B: GUY’s POV

Black Moment Effect (Return to the beginning/their worst nightmare comes true. The lie feels real.)

Epiphany (Truth defeats the lie. Realization of what needs to happen.)

Chapter 11A: GUY’s POV

Final Battle (Storm the castle.)

Chapter 11B: GIRL’s POV

Final Battle (Storm the castle.)

Chapter 11C: GUY’s POV

Final Battle (Storm the castle.)

Chapter 12A: GIRL’s POV

Perfect Ending (Denouement. Greatest dream realized.)

Chapter 12B: GUY’s POV

Perfect Ending (Wrap-up. Greatest dream realized. Final Image.)

One important thing to note. Even though I’ve combined plot points, it is important for me to write out a full Lindy Hop for each of my POV characters. Even if I don’t find a place to put everything in the story, I need to know it for myself. It helps me understand my character’s motivation, which helps me write them more convincingly. As I mentioned before, Susan May Warren’s book The Story Equation is a great help for plotting, especially if you are writing a story that contains a romance. Click here to learn more about it (Amazon affiliate link).

Another thing I want to mention is that, even when I have two points of view, the story usually leans more toward one character than the other as the LEAD character. For me, that’s GUY since he is the returning character from the Blood of Kings trilogy. In that case, I want to let GUY handle the big pieces of this story, and I also want to begin the story with him and end it with him.

Do you plan out your stories in advance? If so, what process do you use? Share any tips with is in the comments.

Jill Williamson is a chocolate loving, daydreaming, creator of kingdoms, and the author of several young adult fantasy novels including the Blood of Kings trilogy. She loves teaching about writing. She blogs at goteenwriters.com and also posts writing videos on her YouTube channel and on Instagram. Jill is a Whovian, a Photoshop addict, and a recovering fashion design assistant. She grew up in Alaska without running water or electricity and now lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband and two kids. Find Jill online at jillwilliamson.com or on InstagramYouTubeFacebookPinterest, and Twitter.