How I plot a novel

One of my lovely followers on Instagram asked a few months ago how I plot my novels so I figured I'd answer that today. When I first sat down to write this blog my immediate answer was "I don't know. I just do." That's probably because every book is different in the process I follow. There's also a lot of thinking and marinating on ideas that happen. Like a lot, a lot. Sometimes I have vague ideas for a plot and the characters and I wake up one day (or sit down at my desk - although realistically it usually comes to me in the shower or when I'm doing dishes/chores) and the plot just comes to me like it was already out in the universe somewhere and it finally landed on my lap.

But here's the process that I try to follow...

Usually I have an idea for a character or scenes first. Sometimes both. When that happens I'll open a google doc and start brain dumping anything and everything I know about the book - whether that's character information or scenes (sometimes it's actually parts of scenes) or tropes or even a title. This can happen over the course of a few days or weeks. I keep brain dumping into the document until I at least have a clear sense of the characters and the beginning plot of the book.

Once I get it to that point I start to organize my notes. I start with the characters - identifying their motivation, goals, and wounds along with their physical descriptions and personalities, as well as any side characters, friends, family, etc. Knowing the characters motivations, goals, and wounds is big because it informs the reasons why they can't (or think they can't) be together, adds conflict, and helps figure out the third act breakup/dark night of the soul. This is also when I figure out tropes if I haven't already.

Then I start working on a bare bones outline. I figure out what the beginning of the book looks like, what their meet cute is going to be, the inciting incident/break into act 2, the midpoint, and the third act breakup/dark night of the soul. I use my own version of a combined Save the Cat and Romancing the Beat for my story structure. But again it depends on the book. Some more loosely follow it then others.

Sometimes (a lot of times) I don't figure all of that out. But once I at least know up to the midpoint I start outlining chapters.

Typically I aim for 70K words and I use the three act structure which means act 1 is 25% of the word count, act 2 is 50%, and act 3 is 25%. I estimate my chapters around 2k words (although a lot of times that isn't the case) so I know about how many chapters I need for each act and where certain events need to happen. At this point I also try to figure out if the characters goals, motivations, and wounds are still working for the story - if they're not I'll adjust as needed.

At this point, I go back to my list of scene ideas and figure out where I can plug them in. I go chapter by chapter and write thoughts about what's going to happen. With some books (like Break Out) I had a pretty solid outline, with other books (like Golden Goal and Blue Line) I only outlined to about midway through the book before I started writing draft one. It really just depends how clear the plot is when I start this process.

From there I start writing the book. And usually have to replot/reoutline as I go because I realize things about the characters I didn't know before or figure out something that will work better in a chapter that changes the outline. And sometimes I completely abandon the outline and end up reoutlining after I finish the first draft. That second one happens a lot. If there's one thing I've learned having written many books at this point - it's to trust myself and what my intuition is telling me about the story and not try to force myself to follow my outline if it isn't working. Even if I may not know why it's not working.

And that's how I outline my books. Let me know if you have any questions about my outlining process or if you have any other writing/publishing questions you'd like me to write about in future blog posts.

Until next time,

Marissa