Plot planning

Before I was a writer, I was a painter. And I was a painter who never sketched. Well, hardly ever. I envied people who did, but I was worried by that rush to commit an idea to the page. To throw it out there with such abandon. Why would I want to make preparatory sketches when I had the whole image sitting perfectly in my mind's eye anyway? I wanted to guard the clarity of my inner vision and save it, untouched, for the finished work.

Artists, eh? In retrospect it was most likely an anxiety issue.

Well as a writer I've finally had to learn how to sketch. After all, a novel is HUGE.  It's so big you can't even see it all at once, however far back you stand. You can't hold it all in your head. Just not possible.

When I started writing seven years ago, I muddled around giving my first novel space to grow. I couldn't have done anything else - I didn't know what I was doing. I let it find its own shape in its own time, unrushed. And then I pulled it together in the rewrites, by which time I'd learnt a lot more about the shape it needed to be. And about writing in general.

Starting a second novel feels very different. I actually have an idea of what I'm doing this time. I know how to write a synopsis (ooh, that's a painful learning curve) and writing one for my new plot immediately sorted out an issue that had been tripping me up. I hadn't been able to see what the problem was, but it turned out to be as simple as a location that didn't work.

Making a plot plan was even more helpful. I'd imagined that it would be a huge task, like solving a vast and fiendishly difficult sudoku. I thought it would take months of mind-bending calculations, scribbled notes and despair. Actually it turned out to be fun and very straightforward. It took me 2 weeks. And that was only because I was dawdling.

Everyone will have their own preferred method of making a plot plan. I decided to use sticky index markers. They're easy to reposition, and a convenient way to colour code POVs. I wrote my plot points on the markers and stuck them onto 4 A4 sheets of thin card. Where there were 3 or 4 key events in the same chapter, I placed them in a row.


Here's how the plot plan looked in progress.

(If you're interested, I have 55 chapters and expect each to be about 2,000 words long.)

It was immediately obvious that I was missing a character. There was a character-shaped hole. I'd have figured that out eventually somewhere down the line, but the plan made it visible straight away.

I also wrote a plot outline.

Of those three things - synopsis, plot plan and plot outline - I'd have to say that I found the plot plan by far the most useful. But each was invaluable and helped to clarify the others.

Will the finished novel be very different for having been planned out? You know I'm not so sure it will be. I think it'll arrive at much the same place, just a hundred times quicker. Well okay maybe it'll be a more handsome beast and have muscles in all the right places. I hope so.

You know what? Sketching's fun - it didn't hurt at all. My inner vision is intact and even enhanced. And I'm so relieved to not be trying to hold a whole novel in my head anymore.

Low tide

A view over the Cromarty Firth to the Black Isle this morning.

Frosty morning

The Visuals

Promoting your writing isn't like selling your house - you're not supposed to paint it magnolia and remove your personality. I know this. We all know this. We're trying to get ourselves noticed. But what's the best way to go about it? And just how much colour and personality is the right amount?

In the real world I'm a skulker in the shadows and if you haven't noticed me then I've achieved my goal. So trying to make my blog stand out is a big challenge.

As a trained artist you'd think I'd have the whole visual thing sussed out. Well yes and no. The thing is I'm a painter not a graphic designer and, contrary to what people assume, artists aren't general practitioners in all fields of art. Like doctors we tend to specialise. Trying to design my blog page I've felt like a dermatologist trying to remove an appendix. In an emergency I'll give it a go. I might even have some idea of what I'm doing. But I might kill the patient.

Here are a few of the things that I've learned so far:

1: You can't have too many photos.

This really is true. I doubted it. Now I'm a believer. Photos are now pending!

2: You need a very smiley author photo.

Smiley = confident professional.
Not smiley = unappealing, pretentious, slightly creepy.
Laughing = probably a genius.

Even friends have shuddered at the photograph on the About Me page of my website. Oops! I thought that was my friendly face. Someone needs to tell me a very funny joke and have a camera at the ready.

(Btw laughing and wearing a series of funny hats = mad as a box of frogs.)

3: Colour is good but not essential. More isn't always better.

Colour is an important tool but the challenge is to be visually interesting without being dazzling. Eye-popping colour and a cheap design can make even the best writing seem unprofessional.

4: Having a go is more important than getting it right first time.

Unless someone is setting your web pages up for you, you have no choice but to launch right in. There's no point in waiting until you know what you're doing, you'll have to surf that learning curve. Looking at other blogs is a great way to see what works and what doesn't. And, importantly, to see what other people writing in your genre are doing.

5: Paying for professional input may be worth every penny.

We all want to believe that the quality of our work will shine through regardless of poor presentation, but it probably won't and why should it have to?