I recently took one of those half-brained quizzes. Er, um, right-brain/left-brain quizzes . I was a little surprised at my result (though my husband guessed what I was right off the bat. Go figure.).

There are positives and negatives to both sides. Traditionally, left-brained people are the analytical and logical. Right-brained people are the “creative types.” Personally, I didn’t want to be left-brained—who wants to be characterized as someone completely devoid of emotion and creativity?—and I didn’t want to be right-brained—who wants to be seen as flighty and incapable of reason?

Thinking about all this got me wondering whether “brainedness” had anything to do with whether or not you plot your stories in advance. Are right-brainers less likely to plot? Are left-brainers more likely to? So, I’m asking you:

Because the quiz I linked to always gave a “whole brain” 16/16 result, I reset the poll. Please answer again, and if you need to, here’s a quiz that gives real results.

Click through to take the poll!

(If you’re not sure where you fall on the brainedness spectrum, this quiz—that quiz is rigged, try this one only takes a couple minutes. On the plotting spectrum, I tend to be quite generous—if you’ve written down a plan for the course of your story with specific events, even if you don’t follow it or the events aren’t super specific, I consider that plotting.)

What do you think? Did your results or the poll’s results surprise you?

Our blog series on plotting was well-timed to get us prepared for NaNo (even though I’m not participating).

Ready to review our whirlwind tour through the hows and whys of plotting, as well as several different methods? Good news—the free PDF of The Plot Thickens is ready!

I know several readers are doing NaNo, but many aren’t. Any votes on what we should look at next?

I’m getting ready to make our series on plotting into a free PDF. In one of my free writing guides, I included some “bonus features”—resources that weren’t posted on my blog in the original series, but that are pretty darn awesome.

I’ve been collecting bonus features again this time around, and I have a few. But I’d love to see your favorite resources and methods for plotting.

What do you use to plot? Share your favorite resources in the comments and I’ll include an attribution link for you in the free PDF version of the plotting series!

Photo credits: question—Svilen Mushkatov

Well, that wraps up our series on plotting. It’s been fun, hasn’t it? We’ve learned about the three act structure, the snowflake method, the Hero’s Journey and Larry Brooks’s story structure. We’ve seen them applied to fellow writers’ works.

We started off talking about the need for plotting—and of course, there are still going to be some of us that don’t believe in plotting. The arguments are the same (and I used to make them myself)—plotting kills our creative drive. Plotting is boring. Plotting is stifling.

And no, there’s no plotting method out there that will manufacture ideas for us, but there are lots that help us imagine the types of ideas that will move our stories forward. And yes, the joy of writing is in creating and discovering the twists and turns—but knowing what landmarks we’re shooting for can make sure we don’t end up going in circles, or remodeling a Winchester Mystery story, where two thirds of it will have to be jettisoned before we could ever hope to create a livable structure.

Plotting doesn’t have to mean you write out a scene-by-scene outline. When I plotted my most recent MS (using Story Structure), I had the beginning, five landmarks, a twist and the end in mind, plus a freewrite brainstorm of backstory/ideas/plot (about 3 pages). Right now, a lot of the transitions need work, but I never felt lost, never got stuck because I wasn’t sure where I was going and finished the first draft in about 55 days. I know it has a solid backbone, even if some of the stuff in between is a little flabby—and that’s not bad shape to be in after the first draft (not to mention eight weeks, and I took a couple weeks off in there, too).

When we plot, we have to do what works for us. So many of the writers we had guest posts from over the last few weeks mentioned how they customized that plotting method to meet their needs.

If you’ve never plotted before, or if you’ve never successfully plotted before, why not give it a try?

What do you think? What’s keeping you from plotting? Or are there any other plotting methods you like?

We discussed the Story Question at the beginning of our series on plotting. The more we’ve discussed plotting, however, the more I realize I have more to say on this topic.

The first time we talked about it, we defined the story question like this (well, we’re using different emphasis this time):

The story question is the basic concept of the story. It’s asked (or hinted at) at the beginning of the story, and answered by the end. It’s the controlling, overarching action of the story.

So how do we hint at the story question at the beginning, especially if we don’t plan to formally ask it until the Call to Adventure, or Plot Point #1?

In all the plotting paradigms we’ve looked at, there’s a period at the beginning of the story where we get to see the character’s world: the Ordinary World, the Setup. Note that the three act, the five act and Brooks’s story structures all place the transition from this world at the 1/4 point, where we’re introduced to the BIG conflict.

But how can we introduce the story question in the beginning if we can’t actually “ask” it for some 25,000 words?

As we show the Ordinary World, we have to show something is wrong there—something is missing. Something is lacking—something that the conclusion of our story will bring to him or her.

If it’s a romance, we need to see in the beginning that the hero and heroine are lacking something—they’re alone. If it’s a mystery, we need to see a lack of justice (which an unsolved murder portrays nicely). Perhaps our main character is naive (or jaded), and the end of the story will bring knowledge or wisdom (or crack his hard exterior).

That doesn’t mean, however, that our characters have to spend the first quarter of the book whining about how lonely they are, and it doesn’t mean we have to wait until the 1/4 point to introduce them (conversely, we aren’t obligated to have them meet, sparks flying, on page 1, line 1).

We have to have conflict in the Ordinary World. If you’ll recall, in The Incredibles, this conflict related directly to the main plot—each member of the family was having a hard time, challenged by the Ordinary World. When we ask the story question (well, at each of the turning points), the stakes are raised for each member of the family.

This conflict in the Ordinary World should relate to the main plot. Imagine if we spend 25,000 words worrying about whether Pa’s crop will come in, and at the 1/4 turning point, we ask if Angelica can find true love. Can you imagine readers’ whiplash—and disappointment (or even outrage) that they just wasted X amount of time reading about something that has nothing to do with the story? That all those characters we cared about don’t matter anymore?

Even if we ask if Angelica can find Pa’s murderer, was the treatise on chopping cotton really necessary? Only if someone killed him for his crop, and even then, the first section might need to be adjusted a little to focus on the story question and not the agricultural practices of white sharecroppers in the 1930s.

What do you think? How have you set up your conflict before asking the story question?

Photo credits: question—Svilen Mushkatov