Plot Monkeys

Couple of weeks ago, I asked if it would be okay with the Plotmonkey readers if we devoted a little time to the writers who join us here on the blog. Since everyone seemed amenable, I’m going to hijack the Saturday Chit-Chat for the next few weeks to present my notes from a workshop I recently did for my TARA chapter called “Plotting With Your Pants On.” Ask questions, comments, request examples and clarifications…hopefully the other monkeys will jump in too with their commentary. (Except Leslie, who is off at a conference this weekend.)

Here it is…I’ll be presenting in parts.

Part One

Plotting with Your Pants On

In recent years, two schools of thought have emerged in terms of how writers plot their books. If you’ve been in RWA long enough, you’ve heard the term “plotter” and “pantster.” The plotter being the writer who carefully and meticulously plans out every key point in the scenes, chapters and “acts” (under screenwriting’s three or four act systems, which I’ll discuss next week), does character interviews, exhaustively researches and for all intents and purposes, comes off as anal and left brained.

The pantster, on the other hand, is so named because this writer works from the seat of their pants, rather than from any definitive plan. The original term for this was “misters,” a term coined, I believe, by Jo Beverly when she gave an RWA keynote address and wrote several articles on “Flying Into the Mist,” which basically outlined her process of sitting at the computer and typing away, letting the story tell itself organically without any definitive plot to guide her. This is all very creative, very right-brained, very…literary.

Over the past few years, there has emerged a sort of factioning that disturbs me as a writer. Assumptions are made about the creativity level of one author over the other…and frankly, about the talent.

I believe very strongly that these arguments are ridiculous. But it’s easy for me because I’m a switch-hitter. I “do it both ways” as it were.

So what I’m going to share with you today is MY WAY of doing things. And the one thing MY WAY will illustrate is that there is more than one way to plot a book.

There is no wrong way or right way. If you plot one way, your books will not be more complicated or intricate than another…nor will they be more creative or organic. No matter HOW you write, the only thing that counts in the end is the FINAL PRODUCT. How you get there is entirely up to you.

One thing I learned when creating my layering technique is that necessity is the mother of invention. After writing twenty-five books, I’ve learned that every book is a different experience for me. Some are a snap while others threaten to kill me. Some I can write without having a single word written in pre-planning–including a synopsis. The Blaze I wrote last year, THE DOMINO EFFECT, was sold on two paragraphs and I never wrote a single other pre-planning note. I sat down and wrote.

The caveat to that is that I did talk the book out with my plotting partners, and I do intend to talk about that process a little later on.

On the other hand, my last Marisela book, DIRTY LITTLE LIES, was not only plotted once, but twice. I had a science project board with post its and pages and pages of notes–one for each version of the book (I’ll show you a picture of my current plotting board next week.) The only thing the process for writing this book had in common with Domino was that I discussed the book, mostly the second version, with my plotting partners before I wrote.

I guess this is a good time to discuss the process of plotting with partners, which of course, is how this blog came to be. Here are a few guidelines you might want to consider if you go this route.

 Have a mix of personalities and strengths–but it is perhaps helpful to work within genre (historical/contemporary.) Helpful, but not essential as I’ve learned from other groups. In our case, Janelle & Carly great with characterization and emotions; Leslie and I are better with plotting and external conflict.

 Only work with people you trust. (Critique with them or know them personally for a long time beforehand so you know that they understand and respect not only your voice, but your body of work).

 Have a plan. (1-1/2 hours per book, with two books per person if what we Plotmonkeys do…and designate a scheduler. In our case, it’s Janelle.)

 Plan for downtime (helps keep up the trust and friendship so essential to the process.)

 Establish rules…if someone says “that’s just not a me story/character/element” then the others have to drop it.

 NO STEALING IDEAS WITHOUT PERMISSION–offering them is best. In other words, if an idea comes up that you don’t want to use, but you know is good…let someone else have it if they want. We’ve never done this, but the offer is out there.

 Generally, we all start off with either character or a plot element or a scene and we build from there. There’s no set way…you have to be flexible.

 GMC–two years ago, we started implementing the GMC portion of our plotting. Before we finished plotting a book, we made sure we had GMC for the hero, heroine and villain (if there is one). This helped the writer down the line when the plot had to develop.

 Don’t always try to plot scene by scene…what you’re looking for is enough information to write a really good synopsis. Everyone is different and will need different information. Janelle doesn’t like having too much information, for me, the more the better.

 TAPE THE SESSIONS! Do not rely on notetaking or memory…it won’t work. Invest in a good digital recorder. After each session, download the files to a laptop…the files are often too big for email. (*Have at least one techno savvy person in the group!)

 Four is probably the max that the group can handle in one weekend. Everyone gets 3 hours…that’s twelve hours and that’s a lot because you’ll end up using more, even if it’s not recorded.

Next week, I’ll talk about standard screenwriting techniques to plotting and how to adapt it to romance novels. Stay tuned!