Looking for a story idea? Here are a few titles that just might get you started.
So write that novel—but what’s the plot? Share your craziest idea for a book with any of the above titles in the comments!
Photo by Georg Mayer
I enjoyed this post when I read it on Writer Unboxed—and then Miss Barry’s publicist emailed it as a potential guest post. I jumped on it!
By Brunonia Barry, author of The Map of True Places
One year into a two-year book deadline, I have reached page 165 in my manuscript. So far, my characters have obediently done everything I’ve asked of them, but today something changed. This morning, they couldn’t seem to take a step without tripping over their feet. So they decided to stand still. I couldn’t make them go forward, and I couldn’t make them go back. When I asked what the problem was, they told me they were confused.
I’d be panicked about this situation except that I’ve been here before. Twice. And even more if you count the screenplays I wrote when I lived in LA or the books I’ve written for ‘tweens. While I don’t like it, I have come to expect that there are times when characters just won’t move.
For me, this always happens in the same place, maybe not always on page 165 but some place close to it. It’s always in the middle of the book. “What was it you wanted me to do?” seems to be the question my characters ask, and when I tell them, they become skeptical. Since I trust characters over plot every time, I tend to listen when a character tells me “I wouldn’t do that kind of thing.” And the middle of the book is always where they seem to doubt their motivation.
There’s a name for this. It’s called the mess in the middle. It’s an expression I first heard when I was enrolled in one of Robert McKee’s screenwriting workshops. I was writing a comedy called Sluts, a sort of West Coast Sex in the City with an edge, when my characters refused the adventures I was trying to send them on and threatened to infect me with a case of writer’s block if I persisted in giving them directions. They were angry with me, and who could blame them? As a relatively new writer, I was lost and confused.
Confusion, in itself, doesn’t bother me. I honor it as part of the writing process, a byproduct of communing with the muse. It is a frequent ailment, but not a serious one. Unfortunately, the mess in the middle is a different illness. If left unchecked, it can be fatal. I’m willing to wager that this midpoint is where most writers abandon their projects. I know it has been true for me. I have several unfinished manuscripts sitting in drawers, including that screenplay. One day, knowing what I know now, I may open the drawer and dust off those stories. Meanwhile, I’ll tell you exactly what the mess in the middle is, and what you can do about it.
I’m sure you’ve heard that old story about the mountain. You are climbing a tree lined mountain trail in an effort to see the view from the top. You’ve been walking for quite a while. About halfway up, you realize that you don’t have any idea where you are. You can no longer see the bottom of the mountain, and you cannot yet see the top. You begin to panic. If it were up to you, you’d just quit, but you can’t. You’re halfway up the side of a mountain for God’s sake.
So what do you do? If you’ve prepared for the hike, you’ve been smart enough to bring a map. Though it’s an exercise in blind faith, you have no choice but to follow it.
In writing, my map is my step outline. Though I write free form for quite a while when I’m starting a project, I am not a pantser. I believe very strongly in outlines. Once I’ve captured the voice of the characters and know them well enough to ask that first what if question that propels them forward, it is time to create a step outline.
My outline is simple enough. It contains only the major steps of the story. Sometimes it’s a sentence or paragraph, sometimes a list of bullet points. I spend more time on it that any other aspect of my writing, because it’s the only tool that allows me to see the big picture. It particularly helps with pacing and with the progression of character changes. If I follow it, I seldom get into trouble.
The problem is, sometimes I don’t follow it. I am moving along so fast, and the story is going so well, that I just keep writing. This is exactly what I discovered this morning when I went back to look at my outline. A few days ago, I was writing so furiously that I skipped a step, and, as a result, my characters missed an important turn. If they had reached the impasse immediately, I might have spotted my omission. Unfortunately, the dead end hadn’t come until the following chapter, several turns later.
If I hadn’t taken the time to create my map, I might never have found my mistake. The manuscript might have ended up in that drawer with my screenplay. Luckily, with my step outline and just a bit of work, I was able to get my characters back on track. They are now happily moving forward.
How are your story maps constructed? Do you outline? Have you experienced the mess in the middle?
Author Bio
Born and raised in Massachusetts, Brunonia Barry, lives in Salem with her husband and their beloved golden retriever, Byzantium.
Barry is the first American Writer to win the Woman’s International Fiction Festival’s 2009 Baccante Award (for The Lace Reader). Her second novel, The Map of True Places is out now.
For more information please visit http://www.BrunoniaBarry.com, and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.
Photo by Jack Keene
Post © 2011 Brunonia Barry, author of The Map of True Places. Reprinted with permission.
Questions can be a great way to get ready to write. We looked at some character questions last week. This time, I want to look at my favorite idea/plot generating questions.
Sometimes, I find myself just answering these questions subconsciously as I plot and write, but usually I can trace my thought process back through the questions I asked myself to get there.
What do you think? What kind of questions do you ask yourself when plotting?
Photo by Gillian Maniscalco
Personally, I think there’s a wide spectrum when it comes to whether or not you outline before you write. Yes, okay, having an outline or not having an outline is pretty cut-and-dried, but there are a lot of in betweens:
Once upon a time, I was at the pantser (as in “by the seat of your pants”) end of the spectrum. And my stories were often a mess. (Winchester Mystery Story, anyone?) Whether or not they’d turn out all right was hit-or-miss.
Then I got into a larger project: parallel novels written simultaneously with a friend. We had to work to coordinate our timelines. There was no way to pants this without ruining one another’s books. I broke down and plotted. And to my surprise, it was even better than pantsing!
But while I’m definitely a plotting convert, I’m not a hard-core-plan-every-scene-to-the-final-detail kind of writer. Like pantsers (and probably most plotters to some extent), I need at least a little discovery and creativity to make drafting fun for me. I’m still experimenting at how much discovery vs. planning I need—my last draft was a little short on the planning. It wasn’t until I sat down and figured out my path in a little more detail that I could finish the book. (And I’m going to need to add some more structure in some parts—that darn sagging middle!)
So where do you fall? How did you come to be a plotter or pantser?
Photo by fracacta
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.
(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?
