I’ve written about four thousand words today of all-new material–the ONLY thing I still have to add is detail on Line-for-Scene, Take Two. And I have a few more typos to hunt down and kill.
Thought you might like to see the table of contents. Line-For-Scene, Take Two, all the way at the bottom, will have more pages and headers than it has now, but otherwise, this is close to gone gold.
Introduction: What Is Plotting (And Why Is It So Hard?) 8
Plot Is… 8
Where Plots Are Born 9
Plotting’s first home is your logic. 9
Plotting’s second home is your life. 9
Plotting’s third home is your Muse. 10
A word of warning on dealing with the subconscious 11
How Plots Grow 12
Before you start writing 12
While you’re writing 13
While you’re revising and editing your first and subsequent drafts 13
While you’re plowing through you’re editor’s final revisions 13
The Seven Basic Plots (Plus A Mermaid) 14
Plotting Is A Process, Not An Act 15
How To Use This Book 17
Order of Use 18
First: 18
Second: 19
Third: 20
What You’ll Need 20
Absolute Necessities 21
Should Haves 21
Things You Might Need 21
My Assumptions 23
Section I: Plotting Before Writing 25
Structures 27
How Many Plot Cards Will I Need? 27
Usual Novel Word Counts 28
Figuring Average Scene Length Wordcounts 28
The Number of Scenes You’ll Need Is… 28
The Three-Act Structure 29
Pros 32
Cons 33
Character Structure, Single POV 33
Pros 33
Cons 34
Character Structure, Multiple POV 34
Pros 36
Cons 36
Cliffhanger Structure 36
Pros 37
Cons 37
Organic Structure 37
Pros 38
Cons 39
Timeline Structure 39
Pros 41
Cons 41
Mixing It Up 41
Section II: Tools—When Things Are Going Well 42
Plot Tools, and Why There Are So Many 43
Tool 1: Question 45
The Good Question 46
After you figure out your question and ask it, don’t say anything else. 49
Exercise: Question 49
Tool 2: Twist 50
Doing the Twist 50
Exercise: Twist 53
Tool 3: Cliffhanger 55
You can leave your reader hanging: 56
Working out the cliffhanger: 57
Exercise: Cliffhanger 58
Tool 4: Character 60
What is Annalise’s compelling need? 61
Exercise: Character 63
Tool 5: Line-For-Scene, Take One 65
Exercise: Line-For-Scene, Take One 69
Tool 6: Conflict 72
Exercise: Conflict 75
Tool 7: Language 76
Exercise: Language 81
Tool 8: Culture 83
Exercise: Culture 86
Tool 9: Map and Terrain 87
Exercise: Map and Terrain 90
Tool 10: Throwing Stuff Against A Wall 91
Get Stuff 91
Throw Stuff 92
Make Sense of Stuff 93
Exercise: Throwing Stuff Against A Wall 95
Tool 11: Theme and Concept 96
Exercise: Theme and Concept 101
Section III: Tools—When Things Go Splat 103
Tool 12: Awake—Timed Writing 104
Exercise: Timed Writing 106
Tool 13: Awake—Word Games 108
Goosebumps 108
Exercise: Goosebumps 111
Pong 112
Exercise: Pong 114
Chase Your Tail 115
Exercise: Chase Your Tail 117
Tool 14: Awake—Drawings 118
Random Drawing 118
Exercise: Drawing 121
Tool 15: Awake—Cards 123
Everyone Can Use These Cards 124
Recommended Tarot Decks 125
Card one—my problematic character 128
Card two—my character’s objective 129
Card three—my character’s obstacle 130
Exercise: Cards 131
Tool 16: Awake—Making and Doing Things 133
Exercise: Making and Doing Things 135
Tool 17—Chop Wood, Carry Water 136
Exercise: Chop Wood, Carry Water 138
Tool 18: Awake—Bore Your Muse 140
Exercise: Bore Your Muse 143
Tool 19: Asleep—Dream Journal 145
Exercise: Dream Journal 149
Tool 20: Asleep—Dream Blackmail 150
Exercise: Dream Blackmail 151
Section IV: Plotting While Writing 153
Fix an Existing Project 155
Start by building a line-for-scene outline on white index cards. 156
Now you have to fix the line-for-scene. 157
First you define the problem. 157
Then you decide on a course of action. 158
Then you write line-for-scenes for existing scenes on plot cards. 160
Finally, create fresh plot cards for the rest of your book. 161
Dance With the One Who Brought You 162
Rethinking Plot Points 162
Don’t panic. 163
The Great (Late) Idea 166
What do you do? 166
Changing Characters 167
When it happens: 167
Changing the World 168
If—probably when—this happens to you, how do you handle it? 169
Changing the Crisis 169
How to Fix the Crisis 170
Plotting the Ending 173
The Good Ending 174
Exercise: Plotting the Ending 178
Plotting While Revising 180
No 180
Line-For-Scene, Take Two 182
Conclusion 186
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