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 Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.
I usually use the Jot, Bin, Pants Method, in which you write down all your scene ideas, organize them into beginning middle and end, then write out a complete scene list. Then, based on that scene list, I write a synopsis. Usually I end up with a decent story structure, but it isn’t quite as well fleshed out as it could be. Some plots are easier to find all those moments for… and others I struggle.
It’s very interesting watching your book come together and seeing these strategies applied. Thank you!
That’s cool, Hannah. I’ve not heard of that method before. I’m always trying new strategies to see if there is something new I can learn, and then I’ll implement that into my process.
I like to have some plan, at least a loose idea of the main plot points. I will fill in if anything else is there too, but a lot of times it’s not. I wish I had the ability to plot more beforehand. For a long time I tried to force it, but this year I’ve loosened it some and I am calmer.
I have tried the lindyhop. I love Susie and the concept. It’s a little complicated for me right now. Sometimes if I’m stuck I’ll check in to what she says should be to help me brainstorm, but I don’t hold tight to the lindyhop. I especially struggle identifying each of the elements in other books or movies.
The plotting method I find easiest is Michael Hague’s six stages.
Oh, I love Michael Hague. I got to take an intensive course from him one year. He’s a lot of fun. Susie’s Lindy Hop was a little harder for me to understand just from the book. It was being with her in person and seeing her use it that helped me understand it. I’ve likely not done a very good job of trying to communicate it much better. But it really does line up with the other plot structures. I have sheet of paper with Michael Hague’s structure next to two others. They’re truly all hitting the same beats.
This is amazing! The last story I wrote took over two years to write the first draft… I’m trying NaNoWriMo this year- quite the step. I’ve been hoping for a post like this since someone told me that if I want to write faster, I may well need to plot. (Who knew?) What is the best plotting method for a chronic write-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-er? Thanks again for the post!
Plotting certainly can help you write faster. I’m not sure what is the best method for a seat-of-the-pantser, but I do know that Shannon Dittemore is a pantser and she enjoyed the Save the Cat Writes a Novel book. I don’t know how much of that method she used in her story development, but she enjoyed the book.
Okay, I’ll check it out. Thanks!
P.S. You should have a post about how to interweave plot and character. I read some of your back issues and you had a lot about them separately, but I couldn’t find anything about bringing them together.