The End of Plotting Month. What’s next?
By Writer Unboxed | March 1, 2009 |
It’s March, which means our first ever dedicated month of craft talk has come to a close. What did you think of plotting month? Are there any other craft or business topics you’d like to see us tackle on a larger scale like this? Thanks in advance for your feedback!
Write on.
Writer Unboxed began as a collaboration between Kathleen Bolton and Therese Walsh in 2006. Since then, the site has grown to include ~50 regular contributors and a variety of guests on rotation throughout a given year.
In 2016, the Writer Unboxed team published a book with Writer’s Digest / Random House. AUTHOR IN PROGRESS: A No-Holds-Barred Guide to What It Really Takes to Get Published is a comprehensive guide focused on helping writers over/around/through hurdles faced at every stage of the novel-writing process. It’s received some ***** reviews; we hope you’ll check it out.
If you’d like to be among the first to know about the next Writer Unboxed UnConference, which will likely tie-in with WU’s 20th Anniversary celebration, please sign up for our mailing list!
Write on!
I really got a lot out of plot month. It was quite helpful to see so many different kinds of processes. I’m in the midst of plotting hell, so seeing alternatives to wallowing in the messy middle was timely.
Not sure what to suggest for the future. I have you guys on my rss feed, so whatever you write about, I’m going to enjoy.
Thanks!
lisa
Thanks for plotting month! I’ve learned a lot, and plan on re-reading many of the posts as I struggle to find a plotting method that works for me.
Excellent month with plotting ideas galore! It’s always fascinating to see how other authors go through this process of bringing order to chaos. I’ve gleaned some wonderful tips as I’m sure many other WU readers have. Thank you for sharing in your wisdom and experience. Looking forward to what March will bring.
I echo LJ’s and Lauri’s comments. I appreciated learning about a few different methods.
Hi All,
I have to say, I would absolutely love to see some topics on showing emotion in characters.
I’d like to open this to some of the writers on board. How do you go about making your readers cry?
To explain; I was surprised to discover some of the writers I had thought would have had a more organic process to plotting actually wrote out very systematic plots and so I’m wondering – since some of the same authors have made me sob my heart out – do they use a logical process to bring me to tears?
It is my sneaking suspicion that this is something that comes naturally to many writers. I think maybe you can do it, or you can’t.
But if there is a secret, I want in!
I should note, and I think it is interesting, that if you google any variety of ,’how to give your characters emotion,’ you end up with a bunch of substance-less essays. I’ve read all of them. They’re a collection of platitudes that end up with ‘get inside your character’. The closest and most useful information out there is about the order emotion falls in; event, emotional reaction, physical action. But that’s too simplistic, at least I think it is.
Oh and don’t get me wrong, I’m not a beginner writer. And maybe that’s the problem; the information out there is basic and starts with such inanities as, ‘use rain in the setting mimic sadness’. *eyeball roll*
Speak, oh wise ones…
Plotting month was great, loads of ideas and techniques to help make the struggle easier. I like Vic’s idea of writing emotion. It’s hard to come up with unique ways to express emotions, words that will resonant with the readers, yet avoid the cliches.
I enjoyed plotting month as well – I printed out several of the posts and know I’ll come back to them in the future.
I like the idea of writing emotion, and I think people may also benefit from posts on writing description/place without being boring/cliche/etc.
I thought it was great. V. inspiring as I work on a first draft.
I discovered your site midway through plotting month. I loved it. I’d be interested in reading some posts on dialogue. Thanks for being such a great source.
Thank you for all the wonderful advice this past month!
Well timed! Thanks a million. I look forward to reading Writerunboxed every day and Feb.’s focus on plotting was excellent. I’ve shared your web address with members of my writing group because this is one of those golden places on the web for writers. I really appreciate all you do here.
I think I speak for all of us when I say that we’re glad plot month was so well received.
It seems like Vic’s idea for posts on showing emotion has a lot of support. And I think the other ideas–posts on dialogue; and writing description/place without being boring/cliche–hold a lot of potential as well.
Thanks for your feedback. Stay tuned!
As one who is short on story making and even shorter on turning a story into a workable plot, I must say I found the Plotting Month posts invaluable. I would love to read more posts on the craft of writing. Your bloggers have so much of value to share.
I’ll echo the many other positive comments that have already been left. I really enjoyed plot month, and got a lot of great information.
For other dedicated topics, I’d suggest the other two fundamentals of writing: character and setting. As a beginning writer, I’m also constantly on the lookout for help on the actual craft of writing–the nuts and bolts of putting words and sentences together to accomplish something specific within a story. So topics like dialogue, action, description, pacing, and so forth would be awesome! All the information about the business of writing–marketing, query letters, etc.–aren’t on my priority list right now, but I’m sure others would benefit from a whole month of posts dedicated to those topics.
Sorry I’m a bit late – have been catching up on posts. I really got a lot out of plotting month, and found it helpful to be able to focus on one aspect of writing in depth. i’d love to see some ‘months’ on other aspects of writing, but also on things like book launches, readings, PR etc.