Young Writers Society

I wrote this for my blog http://darkelitist.wordpress.com/ It took me around a month to work out what plotting worked, when I first joined YWS as you know I had difficulty with it...

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When I started writing longer stories I went in head first and barricaded thousands of words into the story. Can you guess what happened? The story became blander that an eastender’s repeat. The characters were generic, the plot was “and then this” and nothing was leading anywhere. I would be fooling myself if I was to carry on.

After this failure fifteen thousand words in I went on an expedition on how to plot, there are quirky methods, there are ones based upon scenes you want to write. None worked for me, they all seemed to forceful of getting ideas out and didn’t leave room for me to breath. Plotting should be fun, vibrant and it should get you geared up to write the novel.

So the first thing I do is I take my base idea and write the opening chapter or prologue. Write about the first characters that come to mind, we’ll work on those later, just write an exciting piece that intrigues you and makes you want to build more onto the story. It may end up that you never use this in your final draft of your novel but the fact is it adds enthusiasm to your work.

Done? Right you have your start, the next thing is to vision where is this taking place, is it in our world. If so where? Is it in your made up world. If it is then you will need to world build. I usually start with a map of the world or city and create it around the location of the first piece I do. After this ideas start to bounce around.

Next thing to do is if your first scene is about the villain, you need a hero or vice-versa. When you have the 2 main characters you need an ending, what do you want achieved at the end of the novel, does your main character live. Of course you only have skeletons of characters at this stage, your 3D characters come a lot later.

When you have your beginning and end you can start working on the middle or extend the beginning, you will need to introduce your main character in the first few chapters/scenes so you need an interesting action packed start for him/her. Then you will need a scene about you MC going from danger to more danger, you will need to constantly work on building towards your ending.

This worked for me, it may work for you, it will make you want to carry on to the end.

Interesting. I like your idea. Some people can get away with just writing until they're finished, but those people are rare. Personally, I've been creating my world for 8 years lol, but I still don't know the full plot. I know main points, and I have two possible endings, and I know what the climax is, but that's about it. Sometimes you have to just let your world dictate the direction. For instance, one of my characters just took over my story. I figure he knows better than I do what would be acceptable and what wouldn't be, so I'm letting him call the shots for a while.

I do agree that building your world can give you a lot of ideas. When I'm not writing or plotting out my story, I'm creating a little more of the world, figuring out everything from where a certain group lives to how simple greeting customs differ. That keeps me going.

Another thing you might want to do once you have your main characters is to simply free write with them. You don't even have to have a specific setting - just have them start talking. You'll find out a lot that way.

There are some good tips in there, thanks for sharing them

Crysi wrote:
Another thing you might want to do once you have your main characters is to simply free write with them. You don't even have to have a specific setting - just have them start talking. You'll find out a lot that way.

I especially like this point Crysi. I plan to have a go at this, it sounds like a good way to get to know your characters better; to dump them in a situation and see what they do.

Thanks. Thanks for sharing too crysi.

THANK YOU!!! I've been really stuck on my story that takes place in this fantasy world and now I know why!!! It's because I don't know what the heck my world is, all I have to do is create it and my block will melt away. Mwahahahahah!!! YES!! Finally,and good, and...

Sorry, I'm very trippy right now and I can't quite focus or be coherent.

Thankyou for the comments, I wrote it for people having the same blockades as me. I think it is really motavational.