A Ten-Step Guide to Plotting a Practice Novel
By Guest | October 2, 2016 |
By Charlie Barker, Flickr’s Creative Commons
Please welcome Janice Hardy as our guest today. Janice is the award-winning author of The Healing Wars trilogy and the Foundations of Fiction series, including Planning Your Novel: Ideas and Structure, a self-guided workshop for planning or revising a novel, the companion Planning Your Novel Workbook, Revising Your Novel: First Draft to Finished Draft and the upcoming Understanding Show, Don’t Tell (And Really Getting It). Janice is also the founder of the writing site, Fiction University. For more advice and helpful writing tips, visit her at Fiction University, Twitter, and Facebook.
Plotting is one of my favorite aspects of writing, but it can be hard for some writers. I’ve found that plotting a novel you don’t plan to write can help someone learn to plot without the stress of “messing up” their novel.
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A Ten-Step Guide to Plotting a Practice Novel
Plotting is a vital skill for writers, but it’s something that’s difficult to teach. Every novel is different, and every writer has a different process for how they write that novel. It’s hard to learn the necessary skills while working on a novel you care about, since you might not be willing to change an element you love to fit a conceptual plot point.
But you can practice plotting.
Plotting a novel without the pressure of a story you love allows you to get creative, because none of it matters. There are no beloved characters with pages of backstory to consider. There are no worlds to develop before you can start. There’s no fear that the idea has been done or that an agent, editor, or reader won’t like it.
You can plot whatever you want until you get the hang of plotting, and then use those skills to plot the novel you want to write.
Step One: Choose an Idea
Use an idea you have, but doubt you’ll ever write, turn on the TV and pick the first story idea you come across, or choose the premise of a random book in your favorite genre. Since you’re not going to write this novel, it doesn’t matter what the idea is or where it comes from. It just needs to be something you’ll have fun with. Aim for an external problem, such as catching a killer, stopping a deadly virus, or getting two people to go out on a date. External problems give you external goals to plot with.
Once you pick an idea, summarize it in one paragraph or less.
Step Two: Create a Conflict or Problem to Solve
Find the conflict at the heart of this idea. Something or someone is causing trouble and that conflict will cause a change. The change element is important, because by the end of the book, things need to be different from the beginning of it. A killer is free vs. a killer is caught. A world in peril vs. a world saved. A person alone vs. a person in a relationship.
Once you figure out your conflict and what changes, summarize the problem and what has to be done to fix it in one paragraph or less. This conflict is what the plot will be about.
Step Three: Create a Protagonist, Antagonist, and a Few Characters
People drive plot, and what your characters want will determine how the novel unfolds. Who wants to solve the conflict of the story? Who wants the conflict to remain unresolved, or resolve it in a different way? Who are the people supporting the two sides? Who are the people caught in the middle? Create three to seven potential characters. Aim for at least a protagonist, a sidekick and/or love interest, and an antagonist.
After you choose your characters, summarize each person and what they want in one paragraph or less. These wants are where your plot goals will come from.
Step Four: Choose a Setting
A setting with inherent conflicts provides a variety of potential problems to draw from. These conflicts can make the plot tasks harder to accomplish, create surprise problems, or provide the very goals that drive the plot.
Summarize your setting in one paragraph or less, then consider what potential problems might occur in that setting. List or summarize those problems and how they might affect your characters’ goals and the core conflict.
Step Five: Determine How Your Protagonist Gets Into Trouble
Plot comes from a character making choices. In the beginning of a story, a choice is made that puts the protagonist onto the plot path (the inciting event). Think about how your protagonist winds up in the middle of the conflict. Did they choose this path or were they dragged into it?
Summarize your inciting event in one paragraph or less. Think about how these problems will lead to the core conflict in the end.
Step Six: Determine How Your Protagonist Tries to Solve the Core Conflict
Plots typically have between five and nine major elements, and most of those turning points fall in the middle of the book (middles are where the real plot work happens). Think about the turning points as steps on a path–each step leads to the next all the way through the book. It helps to create a surprise or shocking reveal at the midpoint to give yourself an event to plot toward, and a problem to recover from on the way to the ending.
Summarize ways in which your protagonist might try to resolve the core conflict in two paragraphs or less. Aim for the external problem and the choices made to solve those problems.
Step Seven: Determine How Your Protagonist Solves the Core Conflict
The ending is the whole reason the book exists, so think about what has to happen to resolve the problem created by the core conflict. What will the climax be? Somehow, the protagonist will face and defeat the antagonist in this moment and create that change from Step Two.
Summarize your climax in one paragraph or less.
Step Eight: Summarize Your Beginning
After you create the basic turning points of the plot, it’s time to connect the dots. Start at the opening scene and describe what happens, why it happens, and how that situation leads to the next turning point. Your beginning will end with an important choice the protagonist has to make, and that choice will launch the middle. Remember–the protagonist must choose to move forward.
Step Nine: Summarize Your Middle
Once the protagonist chooses to act and has no way to back out, describe how they try and fail to solve the problems caused by that choice. Problems will get harder in the middle, and the stakes will get higher. By the end of the middle, the situation will be at its most dire and your protagonist will be at their lowest point. Again, they’ll be faced with a choice, and what they choose will launch the ending.
Step Ten: Summarize Your Ending
Describe how that choice leads the protagonist to the antagonist and the final “battle” to resolve the core conflict problem. This battle could be anything from an actual battle to a personal struggle–whatever fits your story. And don’t forget that all-important change. Think about how this resolution has changed the characters and the world they live in.
When you’re done, read your synopsis and see how your plot unfolds. Feel free to flesh it out and add subplots or character arcs. If you have a favorite story structure, map out the turning points using that structure and see how well you did with your plotting. If you find weak spots or points you missed, go back and rework those areas. Keep playing until you have a solid plot you’re happy with.
When you’re ready, move on and plot the novel you want to write.
Do you struggle with plotting? What parts are the hardest for you? What comes easily?
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Many thanks to today’s guest.
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I’ve never thought of plotting a practice novel, but this makes a lot of sense to me, especially this: “It’s hard to learn the necessary skills while working on a novel you care about…” I’ve grappled with this very thing. I’m going to give this a try — thank you, Janet!
Most welcome! I had so much fun creating fake novels for my book. It reminded me why I loved writing so much in the first place. :) Hope it’s equally helpful for you!
This is a great idea, Janice. I need the practice! Time to try something different from “well, I’ll just get started and see what happens.”
Thanks! Well, that can work too if you’re a pantser :) But I’ve always found a little outlining and planning can be a huge help. And if you’re a plotter like me, a lot of planning.
Am finding the point right before the ending hard. So much to resolve!
That’s a tough spot. Often you can take some of those points and resolve them a little earlier in the story to get them out of the way, or leave a few untied (if they don’t affect the story of course).
I always have trouble ending. I keep wanting to throw in more problems!
Great advice! Laid out clearly. Plotting is always a dilemma!
Thanks! I’ve always loved plotting. I think it’s the kid in me playing make believe :)
perfect timing for the upcoming Nanowrimo. I agree, doing this as practice without working on your actual novel is a unique way to approach learning the essence of plot. Thanks, Janice. Very helpful
Thanks! Writing can be so emotional, so removing some of that so we can be objective can go a long way to helping us learn and grow.
I love the step by step method and will practice. The thing that happens to me, which I love, is waking in the morning with characters who have come alive and tell me the real truth about the inner turmoil they suffer. Their deep, dark secrets.
I love that :) For me, that happens at the end of a first draft. I use the first pass through a story to figure out who my characters are, and then revise once I “meet” them.
The timing of this post is amazing. I love historical fiction first & foremost, yet I take it so seriously that I tie myself up in knots and stymie my own progress.
Your post is amazing because I was just telling someone that I wanted to write the first 50k of a book during Nanowrimo in November, but I thought it would be a better idea to NOT use one of my historical fiction ideas because I put too much pressure on myself. Instead, I want to tackle one of the few contemporary stories I briefly kicked around.
And then here is today’s post with essentially the same idea in mind. 8-) Only difference in my case is that I do want to write it.
And I know me–once I start turning over plot aspects for a particular story idea, it will stick to me like glue and I will have to commit to it–even if it means writing in spurts over several years.
Awesome! Using one of your other ideas sounds like a fantastic pan for NaNo. No real pressure, all the fun, and if you happen to wind up with a great rough draft, so much the better. Send good writing vibes to you!
What a great idea, to create a plot for a story you don’t care about. I like plotting for stories I do care about, but not everyone does. I work with authors on story structure, and I know sometimes people find it hard to see a beloved idea in terms of cold-eyed plot logic. This could really shake things up in a good way.
I agree. It’s hard to drastically change something we care about, but if that plotting aspect happens to be something a writer has trouble with, they’ll never learn that skill. Learning objectivity is just as valuable as learning technique.
Plotting is a tricky thing and it makes so much sense to practice. I wish I had known about this earlier, to prevent having written a “practice novel” that will likely end up sitting a a trunk somewhere.
What about getting feedback regarding your practice plot from a critique group? Do you think that would be a good idea or not?
I think that’s a great idea. I can even see a group all doing practice novels together to help each other find their strengths and weaknesses. If you don’t care about the novel, feedback won’t be so harsh. It’s just a throwaway novel :)
I love these planned, organized writing steps. Easy to follow.
Thanks! I love lists. Anything I can break down to simple steps makes me happy, lol.
This is a really useful idea. I end up with a lot of unconnected scenes, because I find it easier to imagine the characters interacting than to organize the plot.
This could work well for you, then. You might take those scenes and try different possible plots to practice putting scenes together. Find a way to make this work with the process you have and what you like doing. No one says you have to write a novel in order :) You could start with fun scenes and them develop a plot from there.
I’m sure that has it’s own set of challenges, but whatever works, works.
I always have a problem with the middle portion of a story. I always envision the beginning and the end easily. It’s the getting the characters from point A to point B that I struggle with.
Middles used to be my nemesis, so I totally understand. What helped me, was the mid-point reversal. I planned a major surprise, twist, or plot event that changed the story in some way in the middle of the novel. The 50% mark more or less. That gave me an event to plot toward, which helped plot out the first half of the middle, and something the characters had to recover from to move forward on the back half of the middle.
The midpoint changed things, threw the story sideways, and basically created the downward fall that lead to the dark moment and triggered the climax and act three.
Totally changed my writing life, so I hope it does the same for you.
A practice novel? I thought I was the only one to do this. I consider my first attempt at writing a book to be practice, a near vertical learning curve, as it were. Thanks.
I called my first novel my “starter novel.” I rewrote that poor thing over and over again. Every time I learned something new about writing, I went back and put it into practice. :)
Plot, wrangling with it and trying to synthesize it so that I can plan and write effectively, is my biggest challenge as a writer. I like this 10 step plan and I’ve honestly never thought of practice plotting, but it’s like any writing skill, isn’t it? Practice improves our skill and ease. Thank you for this post!
Most welcome! Finding your process can be rough. It took me a lot of different attempts before I figured out what worked for me, so don’t stress if you haven’t quite found yours. Keep trying new things and you’ll get there :)
When I read the title of this blog my initial reaction was that no way would I waste precious writing time on a practice piece that I knew I would never use! However the first paragraph hooked me in and I’m going to give it a whirl right now!
Oh good! It’s just plotting, not writing the whole novel (unless you want to), so it really shouldn’t take too much time. :) Hope your practice session goes well.
You mean I can abandon my cherished characters and the story I love, and do something entirely different for practice! I’m torn between “Hey, how can I let my precious writing time dribble away like that” and “Hey, that sounds cool.” I think “sounds cool” is the way to go.
Go for it! Sometimes we need a break and this can be a fun way to cleanse the literary palette. Your subconscious can work on your real novel while you play with a practice one, so when you go back, you’ll have all kinds of ideas!
I like how step 5 emphasizes that the character gets him/herself into “trouble.” It’s the avenue for the author to make mischief.
My favorite part :) I always say, whatever doesn’t kill my characters makes them more interesting. I love being mean to them.
Yes, I’m sure I will attach to the story and continue to play with it. I like the idea of using this practice for NaNoWriMo, but I am still working another that you helped this aspiring novelist see problems and find solutions. Thank you, Janice Hardy, I have already archived your posts and am pretty much dependent on your expertise. Thank you for all you do.
Aw, thanks so much :) I’m glad you’ve found my tips helpful. Doing a NaNo practice novel is a great idea. The deadline and shorter timeframe pair nicely with a throwaway novel.
Thanks for this great post. I’m going to make a Scrivenor project and create a 10 point plot template so I can do this exercise quickly whenever I have time.
Sounds great! That would certainly make it easy to do whenever an idea or the urge hits you.
Excellent post, Janice. Sometimes (okay, most of the time) I get so enamored of my characters that I forget they’re supposed to do something, not merely exist because they’re fun to write about. Learning to look at a story objectively should help me with this problem.
Just keep asking yourself what your characters want and what they’ll do to get it. It’s the choices a character makes that drive the plot, so if you keep putting your characters in situations where they have to make hard decisions, you should be able to keep things moving.
Goodness me I think I clicked that I commented on this post before I actually did it. Oh the pressure because now I have to, and if I don’t then I’m a liar and a cheat and if I were to win a ten page critique, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. Oi.
Speaking of pressure, I loved when you said:
“Plotting a novel without the pressure of a story you love allows you to get creative, because none of it matters. There are no beloved characters with pages of backstory to consider. There are no worlds to develop before you can start. There’s no fear that the idea has been done or that an agent, editor, or reader won’t like it”
At this point in my novel, I have the opposite problem. I care so much that if it isn’t perfect I start hating it. I need to know what to do when the plotting is over and the actual work gets into gear.
The big problem I deal with at this point is after the:
“Summarize ways in which your protagonist might try to resolve the core conflict in two paragraphs or less. Aim for the external problem and the choices made to solve those problems”
After doing that, when the novel is REAL (Don’t know how to italicize here) and I am in the present moment actually writing (yikes, the scary part), the characters’ internal struggles make a huge impact on the external … in my opinion, how the character solves the external and how they change internally as a result of the plot is everything, but it’s so hard. I think what I’m asking is: I really liked this post on plotting and, if you find the idea interesting, I’d like to read another post about how you then put this into action, when we’re in the thick of things. The actual writing of the story. To plot the balls we will have to juggle helps a lot, but I’d also like to know how to juggle them. Ugh, I’m drowning in story-balls and I can’t get up. Help :P
Point being: Thank you for this post, now I want more!
Hi Chris!
If you get a chance to dig into Steven James’ Story Trumps Structure, you might find the path out of that ball pit you’re drowning in. I’m a plotter by nature, but I soon realized that all that plotting, that wayyyyyyy too specific plotting, took me away from the actual flow, the more logical cause to effect of my story. I think the plotting technique here is to sketch out your story, to give it some direction when it’s just a flurry of an idea, to make sure you’re not navel-gazing or running in circles. I don’t think the change your characters will go through is a result of the plot. I strongly believe it IS the plot. Good luck to you, fellow adventurer of the writing craft!
I’ve written dozens of articles on potting on my site, Fiction University, so you might start there for some advice. I also have two books on plotting and revision, with tons of questions and exercises designed to walk you through the process and train your brain to think about plotting and story structure.
But for a quick answer to get you started…a plot is just the series of events that illustrate your story. So try thinking about what your protagonist ultimately wants and why they can’t have it (the core conflict, the whole reason the book exists), and what they’ll do to get it and resolve their problem. Each attempt to get that goal will cause trouble and have to overcome a problem or obstacle, which forces them to make a decision and move the plot forward.
Think, what do they do and why? How does that change them and how does that change cause them to act next?
At last! A positive look at plotting! You make it sound… doable. Thanks Janice!
I always do the first eight steps before writing the first chapter, then pass myself off as a “pantser” because of how fast I’m sometimes able to move from finishing Chapter One to finishing the first draft. Character and conflict. Get those right and it’ll almost write itself. (Please note the word “almost.”)
Cornerstones of a good plot. :)
Thank you for this, it really helps with organizing better. I am just starting out and have been reading everything I can find on fiction writing. I understand what makes a good novel but have a hard time actually getting ideas and putting them to words. Something is burning inside but just won’t release!
Most welcome. That’s rough. At the risk of sounding self-serving, I’d suggest you take a peek at my book, Planning Your Novel: Ideas and Structure. It’s designed to help writers exactly like you with that problem. It’ll take you by the hand and lead you step by step through the process, ask you questions to help you pinpoint your story and what you want to write, give you exercises to brainstorm your ideas to clarify them, and tons more.
It sounds like a little guidance and direction can help you get your words down, and that’s what that book is all about.
This is something I never would have thought to do for practice. Thanks for the idea!
Most welcome!
What a great idea. I need a little break from first draft and maybe this would “loosen me up” a bit.
Doesn’t hurt to try :) Even if you just spent a day working out a new plot, it lets you practice and gives your brain a little breather from your WIP.
This is what I need! I read all this stuff about plotting, but I’ve wanted to practice somehow before trying it on my novel. I tried it with short stories, but that gets hairy fast because they’re kind of a different beast altogether. Thank you for this! I think I’ll give it a go a few different times before I try to apply it to my precious novel premise and characters :)
Awesome! Yep, shorts are different, and not everyone is both a short story writer and a novelist (I know I’m not!). Hope this works well for you :)
I actually did use these steps to plot out a short story. It took an hour of my time and a huge mug of chai tea, and at the end I have a comprehensive outline for the story. Many thanks for this concise list.
Most welcome! I’m glad to hear it works well for real stories as well as practice ones :)
This is a great idea. Thanks :)
You’re welcome!
This is really helpful! I’ve been banging my head against the keyboard on my first book for a long time now, and I keep arguing with myself about finishing this story (with all its plot/character problems) or doing some shorter work to hone my craft first. But this exercise seems like just the sort of thing to build skill without distracting too much from the project at hand. Thank you very much!
Most welcome! That’s what I liked about it. Safe, fun, and no-pressure writing :)
This is a great idea. Plotting, particularly near the end seems to be the bane of my existence right now. Practicing on something I care less about makes perfect sense.
What helps me with sticky endings, is to plot backward. Look at
my ending and what has to be done, then think about the step that got my protagonist there. Then look at the next step and so on until I get back to wherever I got stuck. The change in perspective is often all I need to work out the problem. Hopefully it’ll help you as well :)
This is perfect for me! I am doing NaNoWriMo this year and I am a dedicated pantser, which has not been helpful currently or in the past for finishing projects. Looking forward to putting this into practice and winning at NaNoWriMo! Thanks!
Most welcome, hope it helps you! Feel free to adapt it to better suit your pantser roots if you need to :)
Great tips.
Thanks!