Plotting/Planning/Outlining Scenes/Chapters

Spreadsheets make surprisingly good outliners. My favorite is to use the "categories" feature in Apple Numbers. Rows are points in the story, columns are the plot threads, which makes it work like Plottr.

I think the same thing can be done in Excel with pivot tables. I'm not an Excel user so consider me a bad source for Excel ideas.

You can also add columns for timeline data for an easy export to something like Aeon Timeline. Cool stuff.

 

I have the spreadsheet divided into 7 columns: timeline. chapter/scene, scene description, characters, setting, POV, and notes. Pretty much self-explanatory. This outline shares space on my desktop with the document of the actually writing of each chapter/scene. I can refer to it with the click of my mouse. For me, having it within reach is crucial because I have an issue with short-term memory loss.

 

I started out with the Windows software way back in the day. I'm pretty much hooked on all of them for life. However, I do have an iPad though that I use when not at home. I took a look at the Aeon. I think I still like the spreadsheet format the best.

 

I find it interesting in learning how others describe their scenes or chapters. So many people do it in their own way. I never thought it was such an esoteric approach.

 

No, it isn't uncommon, like you said. I got the idea from Jacqui Murray, author of the
Crossroads trilogy (https://www.amazon.com/s?k=jacqui+murray+books&crid=1Y7Q57LOIFBOE&sprefix=Jacqui+Murray%2Caps%2C86&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_13)

 

I can see that. Using existing tools for more than one thing makes them familiar and transparent. All good.

 

The first thing I start with is writing "concept scenes." These are random, disconnected scenes that almost never end up in the final story, and they are nearly unrecognizable in the rare instances that they do. The purpose of these scenes is not to tell a cohesive story. They are not an outline. They are not events that I'm trying to maneuver the story into. Their purpose is to solely stir up ideas. When I'm writing concept scenes, I'm looking for a general tone and feel. I'm looking for each character's individual personality and role in the story. I'm exploring the way they would interact with each other.

Once I understand my characters and what I'm going for, it's a lot easier to get creative.

 

This! I'd go a step further. If a plan starts to narrate a story instead of just set out landmarks, then the story becomes contrived. It does for me, anyway.

It's kind of like how the journey is more important than the waypoints. Map out waypoints, leaving yourself and your characters at liberty to navigate the dread water between them, you've got a story. Draw strict rhumblines, the journey becomes immutable fate, waypoints become dependencies not goals, and the whole story falls apart.

Clearly, that's just my opinion and anyone else's experiences would likely differ. But that's the way it seems to me.

 

What a compelling approach. Perhaps this is a method I should incorporate to strengthen characters.

Thanks for the idea, Kalisto.

 

I guess it could make the story stiff, but perhaps this is why there is more than one draft for a project.

 

Exactly. That's why they're "concepts" and not actual scenes I intend to use. Once something is written as a scene and viewed as something that must be in a story, then it can be hard to cut that scene out when it doesn't work. And if I read many of my concept scenes, they're miles away from where the story ended up. Characters are cut or deleted. Moments are just never gotten to. And the list goes on.

 

^ This is a lot like what I do as well. I often write about my story before I write it. I'll do writing sessions where I put certain characters together and see how they interact, to get to know them better. I might use a setting from the story, but not a scene from it.

I'll also do things like write the characters as children on a playground, or as old folks in a retirement home. Or I might try writing a proposed scene but from the point of view of the antagonist to get a good feel for what's going through his head. Or just write a scene from a minor character's point of view. It can be surprisingly revealing and help you see the scene in a different way. Sometimes I do this after I already wrote the scene, if I need to change it but don't know how.

 

I haven't thought about the approach in the clear terms you used, but that's pretty much the way stories start for me, too.

Ideas go into either Devonthink or Curio as virtual index cards. Just a few sentences each.

In Devonthink I collect the ones I want to use by tagging them. In Curio, I'm getting great knowledge of their synced text blocks, in which a virtual index card can appear in as many places as you want.

 

I don't use any sort of outline or planning. I'm a wrier, not a planner (though I do recognize people can be both). What I do in terms of keeping the story going is take an unexpected turn every 1,000 words or so. I'm not writing thrillers or anything. It's more like keeping it fresh and unpredictable for the story but also for me as the writer. It can be a lot of fun at times. I think it can few more fun and also more useful than any sort of pre-writing, but that's just me.

 

My writing process is anything but efficient, so please take any advice I give with many, many grains of salt, but I've definitely found outlining to be a useful tool - but not if done too early. I've tried pre-planning and outlining before I write, and I ended up losing interest and never writing what I outlined. The spark was gone.

However, I have several times started writing with just a vague idea of where I was going (pantsing, gardening, choose your term), and through the process of writing discovered what I really wanted the scene or story to be. THEN, I was able to stop, make an outline of the key points that excited me, and continue writing to hit those targets. I wouldn't call it revising - there was some of that, yes, but the spark usually hit fairly early on, when I only had a little bit of the story written.

So, I think it's kind of a hybrid gardener/architect approach. Plant a seed, give it some sun and water, and let it grow enough to see what sort of plant it is. Then build a trellis, some scaffolding, put some wooden support stakes in the ground, and give the story whatever it needs to grow even higher.

 

I haven't always been a planner (better known as a plotter). That started after I finished the first draft of my 1st book and all the errors and mishaps of that draft jumped up at me. I should learn to put some "fun" back into my writing. I've gotten way too glum.

 

Mostly I plan, chapter by chapter, scene by scene, world building, maps, character studies etc. Sometimes, especially with shorts I have a rough idea of a start and end and then just pants it. Some of my favourite stories have been pantsed. There is always some level of planning though, even if it is sometimes very vague.

 

My outlining technique, like yours, isn't really what I do before I write. Like you, I do it along the way in the journal of my project. I outline a scene, giving it a setting, timeline, characters, and a narrative summary filled with incomplete sentences. I, then, write the scene. Then I do the next scene in the similar manner. Along the way I may add or remove from previous scenes using the outline. Does it interrupt the focus? No, somehow it actually helps me stay on track.

 

Do you do research first or do you attack it as you need it? This is one of the reasons why I went from a pantser to somewhat of a planner. The time research takes if I do it as I needed, takes the focus away.

 

I research anything I need to before I start writing, even if pantsing. You can't pants your way through anything factual. I mostly write fantasy though, so factual often doesn't come into it and once you've researched horses and armour and just how long can that elf realistically keep that humongous bow drawn?* you've got it in your head forever anyway.

*not very long as it happens.

 

The common ground - plan by the seat of your pants.

How's that for fence straddling? Should I run for public office?

 

To be fair all my answers could be summed up by "it depends".

 

You plan to get the the party on time. You've also pre-booked your taxi to get home before the dog starves. But you wouldn't plan what you're going to do at the party.

Tried getting the water colours out? If struggling to write I emboss brass or dabble in programming, videogames or just some useful automation scripts. And I write when I'm dreading having to carry on programming. Anything that gives me the confidence that I can still make things when the other thing I'm trying to make looks nigh-on impossible.

 

When writing a script, I plan everything to the Nth. In fact, there's no clear line between the planning and writing. I create a synopsis, then a treatment, then a scene breakdown, then redraft that breakdown about a dozen times or more, expanding it until it's longer than the final version. Then it's a matter of drafing the dialogue, editing the whole thing, then a bunch of redrafting rounds until final.

It sounds like a forumalaic and kinda dry approach, but also it's a practical, precise and clear way of knowing what a script will be long before reaching first draft, and allows for feedback at every stage. To me, the whole process is creative and enjoyable, not just the "dialogue" bits, or the "scene breakdown" part.

Everyone has a different preferred approach, of course. And the level of planning I put into a script absolutely wouldn't work for a novel.

Actually, the last novel I wrote for fun, I didn't plan anything at all outside a few characters and braod themes and just... wrote. I got about 40K words in, reached a dead end, figured out a decent direction, then had to rewrite most of the first half again before I could crack on with the second half. It was exhausting. So maybe I'm just someone who needs a solid structure going in.

 

I don't like a rigid outline. I like to kind of plan loosely, so then the story becomes malleable. So if the story veers off in another direction I don't have to completely uproot the entire story. I tend to plot up until the end of Act 1 with tidbits, scenes etc etc.

But I have to understand my characters fully in my head before writing. If not, my writing won't flow or feel even worth writing. Plot can change but character is extremely important.