Monday, March 3, 2008
Plotting for Dummies
I subscribe to Urban Word of the Day, which if you don't subscribe, you should. It's damned hysterical. I subscribed upon learning the word: "mantastic", which is basically like the word "fantastic" with some testosterone to Bruce Willis it up a few notches. They always use the UWOTD in a sentence, so you're not looking stupid when you show off your new knowledge. "Following his fifth keg of beer, Kevin ripped the horn off of his pet narwhal, and then nailed his porn-star girlfriend for hours. Subsequently, he felt mantastic." I mean, it really makes you want to run out and use that word, doesn't it?Last week's UWOTD Keeper-of-the-Week was: WSD.
I hadn't heard of this acronymic little gem yet, and was amused to learn it means: Write Shit Down.
Clearly genius.
Saturday, Sin and I held our RWR face-to-face critique meeting. Sin is, what you might call, a commitmentphobe. Or maybe she's is too committed. After all, if you put something in writing, she thinks it can't be changed again. (Therefore if she doesn't so much as revise as scraps the whole thing and starts again from scratch.)
Being I'm content to fix Sin's phobias rather than mine, I whipped out my newest writing obsession, my storyboard that I drew my precious straight lines all over, and forced her to give me plot points to the book she's supposedly going to submit to the Golden Heart. (I say supposedly because she mentions this one as her GH submission and writes on her paranormal instead.)
We filled in the blank storyboard, despite Sin's screaming refusal to do anything so tedious as put a story plot in storyboard/synopsis form. It was a success! It worked, much to Sin's chagrin. It's worked twice for me so far--though I'm going to have to recreate one and replot it some to make it better.
Why did it work? Because we WSD.
Now, the storyboard isn't really anything. It's twenty blocks (a 5x4 grid), assuming you're writing a 400 page book. 1st block: Hook; 2nd block: Inciting Incident; 4th block: Point of No Return; 5th block: Turning Point 1. (At least that's how I've set up my blocks at any rate; I'm combining this storyboarding with the 10 Essential Scenes from The Writer's Little Helper.) In the 4th row, I have a blank block, the CRISIS block, two CLIMAX blocks, and The End block.
5th block as we said is Turning Point 1; 10th block is Turning Point 2, which is a BIG EVENT block--the halfway point of your book and a big reveal of something; 15th block is Turning Point 3; and 20th block is The End.
Marnee is fond of the four-act structure--so basically everything that happens in row two is COMPLICATIONS and everything that happens in row three is CONSEQUENCES.
Then it gets more complicated with color-coding your post-its and such, but it's like a game! I never knew plotting could be a game! And you can glance at all you have and go: "Well, this is revealed here, so we probably need a hint somewhere around...here." And you scribble a note and plop it in a square where you think it will go. If you're not happy with it, you can move it around. It's more fun than a regular synopsis.
Even Sin could do it. Even though she didn't want to.
And yes, this is the same storyboarding that Manda at RV was talking about. It works. It really works! It's mantastic. So go get yourself some posterboard and post-its--and WSD.
So what is your favorite Urban Word of the Day? (Mine used to be "Sweet.") How do you feel about committing your plots to paper? Storyboarding or synopsises? Which is better?
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54 comments:
I don't subscribe to urban words--but words of the day that are just plain weird. Actually, they are words of the week. Love WSD.
And storyboards are too much like plotting *w* we know I don't do any of that...lol
Hopeless Pantser. Have no idea what should happen on fifth pink square or outline. Synopsis written at end if I can remember what actually happened. Tried to be more organized but failed. There is a huge disconnect between my brain and my fingers until I'm actually at the keyboard. Some would say there's a huge disconnect with my brain and all reality, but that would be rude.
Sin will be giddy with the relief that you two are hopelessly in her camp. *LOL* She'll warn you to avoid me if I'm carrying a big bag too, I might whip out a blank board and start bombarding you with questions.
Admittedly I'm not attempting the synopsis and I HATE IT.
What's sad is that I loved to do book reports as a kid, but I absolutely loathe this. I think it's because when I summarize my book, I wonder who in their right mind would ever want to read it!
I don't mind a bit of plotting and I did buy the colorful post it notes but this still sounds beyond complicated to me. Anything that resembles homework makes me want to run the other way. The fact I've gone back to college which requires HOMEWORK is still amazing to me.
But this idea that y'all are actually afraid of a bit of plotting is just beyond me. It's all changable, erasable, flexible, tweakable and disposable. It's nothing to fear. LOL! Y'all just need to relax.
Captain - you're going to have to come to my house to explain this to me. And, it's like 75 degrees today so I recommend we do it now. LOL!
The storyboard sounds really cool. Something kind of fun to play with, like you said - a game.
I'm still stuck on the sentence for mantastic! That is hilarious. I'll have to sign up for my Urban Word of the Day.
No, if I'm at your house today, and it's 75 degrees, I'm going to insist we run around Williamsburg or the beach. Sounds heavenly.
I obviously overcomplicated this exercise by telling you all the markings on the board.
I do recommend the Writer's Little Helper book. It's in short little chapters; and one of them is 10 Essential Scenes, basically what scenes you should hammer out before you even begin your story--and it's stuff you've thought about whether you believe me or not.
So the first scene you figure out is "how does the story begin" and the last scene is "how does the story end?"--which if you write a romance: it ends with them HEA, right? Hello. You always know your ending.
Turning Points always confuse me, but it actually looks less overwhelming on the grid.
Irish, I know! My friend Holly and I laughed all day about that word. We even use it now when we're being goofy. (At the site, they even have a link to what a narwhal is if you don't know...or have forgotten your Rudolph claymation upbringing...)
Irish... yeah that was interesting, I wondered if he took his gf with the horn of the narwhal? ouch...
Tiff! This is not "Plotting By the Marquis de Sade"!
This goes to show how boring I am, I just subscribe to the regular word of the day.
Today's word was "probity". I'm trying to expand my regular vocab before I go urban. LOL!
Now I'm going to have to look at narwhal.
Hellion,
You are the one that posted that sentence! LOL... obviously you are channeling M de S today.
LOL!
No, that is literally the sentence used at Urban Word of the Day. I plagiarized it right off their website. It's why it's in quotations.
I loved WSD as my word of the day. I had to share it with someone else who could appreciate it just as much as me. Because as much as we jot down little notes, neither of us can find them when we need them. Which is why I should own stock in Post-Its. I buy enough of those suckers I keep the executives in their nice little offices warm and cozy for the rest of their lives.
And it was SHEER torture! I know you don't understand why it was torture but it was. It was like you were lighting my skin on fire with a Bic.
And a big thank you to Maggie and Tiff who obviously understand me.
I was suckered into going to the library when she pulled out the backpack. I swear, if I'd known the board was in there I would've hightailed it to the hills. Except she duped me into riding with her. She was bound and determined to torture me on Saturday.
I'm going to have that put on a t-shirt:
Captain Hellion
SKILLS: torture, cussing, drinking rum, and wenching
KNOWN FOR: carrying a cat, bullying people into doing her will, being a know-it-all
If you see her, run--she is armed and dangerous.
Now storyboarding is something I haven't tried. But for the first time recently I was forced to do a synopsis for a book before I even wrote it. For a person who's pantsed her way through everything before, that was a challenge, I'll tell you. But the thing I kept in the back of my mind as I was trying to do it was...It's not written in stone just because I put it in this synopsis. If I want to change it later, then I will just go ahead and change it.
You acted like you were on TRIAL, as if at any moment someone was going to flip the switch and electrocute you. And at one point, I thought you were for sure going to ask if they'd just flip the switch and be done already.
It's my gimlet stare. It's all powerful.
Okay, I want to know what narwhal is too!
A narwhal are the whales with the unicorn horns sticking off their heads.
I actually do know what a narhwal is. It was in a sea creature book I bought for my son when he was a toddler. So that word has been in my vocabulary for quite some time... and I'm just getting a chance to use it!!! LOL!!!
Who da thought that logging on to a blog about storyboarding I'd get to use my ace in the hole word "narwhal"!! LOL
I have family that eats narwhal... their horns are very weird to look at and touch.
It's an ocean unicorn. Nar-Whale...
I love how I have a thought-provoking blog about plotting and storyboarding and not being afraid to use post-its--and the thing that captivated everyone the most was the use of "narwhal".
You lost me at the first block...
I love the thought of a storyboard, and it's very colorful, but I have to say I will probably never use one. I am a panster from the get go. I would have to toss the entire storyboard every other day. I think if the storyboard works for you than by all means use it. Writing a synopsis makes my head hurt to think about it.
My word of the day is magnificent:)
Such a great word to have too. LOL
And I was on trial. You were like a Pit Bull with all your questions. I was being judged for my pantsing ability.
But guys, these are post it notes. How much info can you put onto one little post it note? And how permanent could it be?! If you don't like one, you pull it off and put up a new one. It's exactly what you already do.
And these are general questions that you already know the answers to. I got a transcription of part of Saturday's convo and Sin knew the answers to everything. So you have the plot in your head. This is just a way to WSD!
Gah! Y'all make me crazy. LOL!
I love storyboards. :) Mine are less arts and craftsy, but I do love it. Excel baby, it's way less like homework and more like writing.
I'm sorry you were tortured, Sin. Conversely, if I attempted pantsing, I'd probably hyperventilate and need a paperbag.
Pantsing is like standing at the door of a plane, being handed your parachute, and shoved out at 30,000 feet. It's up to you to wriggle into the thing and pull the cord before you hit the ground.
Plotting is so engrossed it's like doing the jump several times with simulated techniques and maybe even a tandem jump.
A Plantser will at least check the parachute before being shoved out of the plane to make sure joker Sin didn't hand her the ACME type with tools rather than a chute. A Plantser will also try to wrangle it half on at least before being shoved out of the plane.
And SIN repeatedly kept telling far more information than I wrote down and tacked on the board. She knew *everything* and acted like I was some type of executioner.
Plotting is scary for me. It feels like the whole story is boring when I actually get to writing it after plotting.
So I'm a panster.
Marnee, I loved the idea of the excel, but I got too wordy within it. And I hated scrolling over. I like being able to look at this in one glance.
Plus I do have that artsy-craftsy MS streak, but whatever....
I did love the 4-act structure though...and the complications vs consequences bit.
I read another storyboarding paradigm where it said the 1st and 4th act mirror each other, as do the 2nd & 3rd acts mirror each other. Whatever occurred in the first act, the opposite is going to occur in the 4th. Trials, unhappiness, chaos in the first--and a HEA and what you always wanted in the 4th part. In the 2nd part of the 4 acts, your character is usually pursuing a goal, a wrong goal, and the 3rd part shows how that goal is the wrong goal--and how slowly it's becoming less important to the hero.
Kelly, I do understand that problem...but I suspect around chapter 8 or so, you're going to run into that problem anyway. There is alway the Glimmer Factor problem that crops up half-way through a book. Or after a first draft is done and you need to do revisions.
EVERY idea seems more exciting and fun than the one you're currently working on.
Cap'n. I think that description of the 4 act is similar to some I read. I know that the way mine is set up the 1st and 4th acts are relatively short. Ordinary world/inciting event being in the first 40 pages- ish and I'd imagine from black moment to HEA it'll be about 40 pages.
And I say, if you need to let your Martha Stewart gene run wild, whatever works for you.
You all ever notice in romances, generally speaking, the FIRST KISS is the first Turning Point? Usually occurs around pages 80-100; then around Turning Point 3, or just before--they have sex--which probably leads to TP3 and the CRISIS, and that happens around page 200 to 250 of a lot of the books?
And whether you do it instinctively or not...it's THERE. Like a cake. The same ingredients go into a cake and whether you use a mixer or beat it by hand, it comes out looking and tasting like a cake....
I prefer to go to the store to get cake. Less hassle.
LOL.
I'm so getting throttled when Hellion sees me next.
Did she really just use the phrase "beat it by hand"? *snort*
My first kiss comes before or around page 65. But I believe in thinking outside the box. LOL!
*gimlet stare* Cabin fever is getting to you lot. This insolence is out of control.
Just wait.
Wow, the cake plot is pretty much dead on. But what happens if you somehow wind up with say...a cookie? Can the story be just as good?lol.
And yeah Teri I totally caught the "beat it by hand"
A cookie translates into "a little cake"--so same difference. Cookie is just as good; it can be the NEW cake, even, if you play the markets right.
Yes, what if it's a cookie?! I vote for the cookie rebellion.
And I prefer cake...unless it's the cookies that Sin was feeding me at her house. OMG!
See, I think the plotting is what keeps the middle from getting slow. I can plan ahead what will keep the story hopping and if the scenes are right, then I'm excited to get to them to write them.
This is all in theory since I can't seem to make myself sit and write more than a few sentences at a time. Seriously, I think I wrote two paragraphs last night, literally stopped mid-sentence, and closed the file. LOL!
I am fascinated by the concept of storyboarding, just as I am by writers like Jenny Crusie and Anne Gracie who do these elaborate collages. But I don't think either will work for me.
A few centuries ago when I was in high school, I learned that the parts of a story were explication, complication, climax (no innuendo intended by our white-haired, virginal teacher), and denouement. All this other stuff seems like variation on that early knowledge to me.
What we each have to discover, I think, is what works for us. Since we are different, the same tools will not work for all of us. I am not sure if I am a panster or a planster; I am sure that what works for me is moving from a seed idea to detailed character bios to writing the first draft non-linearly. I tried other techniques and was paralyzed by them.
So, Hellion, although I "love your guts" (to borrow a phrase from dear J. Perry), I have to side with Sin on this issue. I would have felt as if you were peeling away to expose nerves too.
hmmm. Janga makes a valid point. I'm gonna try the storyboard then decide.
I think Teri's point is also very valid. I get an incredibly saggy middle that even Jenny Craig can't help.
Kelly gives me an idea - what if instead of calling it *plotting* we call it *pilates* for the book. Then the dreaded word is gone! Just like that. POOF! LOL!
Janga - I think you'd have an easier time with someone asking you these questions even if you wouldn't want to create this storyboard on your own. They are just questions and you can easily say, "I don't know." But that's where they come in handy, because they make you think and that's when brilliant ideas show up.
And your ideas are always brilliant so they'd be blindingly brilliant with a little interrogation. LOL!
I thought of it more like brainstorming to a degree rather than plotting. If she didn't know an answer to something, we'd go somewhere else and ask a different question. Or we'd work backwards. Or we'd take this piece here and go, "Well, do you need to reveal more about this aspect here? If so where does this revelation need to be?"
When I plot by myself, I get so stuck on ONE question that I give up, or I start snowballing with other questions I don't know the answer to.
This was like how it was to "plot" with Dee, but with a storyboard at the end that showed us all the efforts/results we had made. So I didn't forget anything brilliant...or moderately useful. Whichever.
Granted if Sin had been wielding the board and post-its, I wouldn't have been able to answer nearly the questions she managed. Even if she did tangent off into another series altogether.
I should have drawn lines on the opposite side and post-it'd her demon/angel story. *LOL* But that idea feels more in an abstract phase. The concept is cool though.
If I'd been wielding the post-it notes you'd ran from me screaming. I know how it is.
Well, yes, but we all know I'm a filthy little hypocrite. *LOL* It's always easier to fix someone else's life or write someone else's story than our own.
Obviously not considering you've finished your MS and I have not.
Well, I've blogged about this before - but storyboards and such just make me itch. I do plot, but I do it by writing a loose outline-ish thing in one document. Some people can look at a bunch of colored squares and see a story - but I can't. I see... pretty colored squares! But I have CPs who love them and swear by them.
The thing is, there's no wrong way to write a book. Whatever works for each person is what she should do! If you interviewed every NYT bestselling author, I bet some are plotters and some are pantsers, and whatever they do it works out fine for them.
Hopeless Pantser in NY, too. This whole thing boggles my mind but yay that it works for you! As you know, Hellion, I come up with everything last minute... including characters' birthdays. *w*
Would it be fair to say that the storyboarding most worked on the WIP that was already written? (Does anyone still have problem writing the synopsis AFTER the book is written? I do. I never make it sound interesting, which I figure is bad news for the book itself.)
[...] reading everything Jenny Crusie writes/wrote about the craft of writing and put that together with Hellie’s info on storyboarding. I now have a beginning, middle, and end with action that escalates all the way through. There are [...]
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