December Meme - Day Five

[aldersprig]

The Meme

lilfluff's topic was: Plotting methods that have worked for you, or that have intrigued you.

Plotting methods that have worked for you, or that have intrigued you.(12)

Okay, so you may have noticed my two favorite formats are "serial that just keeps going" and "500-words-or-less." Neither one of these rely heavily on plotting, the flash fic even less so than the serial.

Needless to say, plotting is something I'm working on.

When I work on serials and long stories (that would mostly be Rin & Girey), I tend to outline chapters on four (Steno-book-sized) lines each, and then draw plot arcs along the side. "This is Shahin's recovery." "This is someone chasing Girey." It works... okay. Writing to the outline is another skill I'm working on <.<

For "Monster Godmother," I found that if I put the story in 100-to-500-word chunks, it made a lot more sense to me. So the outline looked like

[intro:250]
[flashback: 100]
[First scene:250]
and so on.

When I did Nano, inventrix had just introduced me to beat sheets: here. I'm still pondering them, but they don't work well with my flow and tend to throw me off. "Wait, what, they're supposed to be having a defining moment here? But I've got that scheduled as a dramatic pause!"

(I like dramatic pauses.)

And on the "intrigues:" I'm contemplating this: The Snowflake Method, recommended by clare_dragonfly.

So, what about everyone else? How do YOU plot?

Bonus link: 25 Ways To Plot, Plan And Prep Your Story

Comments

Thank you

[dialecticdreamer]

I'm having an "Aw-BLEEP! Stuck AGAIN!" day, and your links will at least help shake something loose. I appreciate even that much help when it feels like the whole story is sunk in quickset concrete.

Re: Thank you

[aldersprig]

Glad to have helped in any way!

[inventrix]

I decided I like the basic framework the beat sheat gives me, but I realized while reading over the Snowflake method just now that I'd succumbed to my non-planning procrastinator self and left too many gaps in my outline and that's why I got stuck.

Also do you want me to tell you why I think you should use Scrivener? 8o

[aldersprig]

You're welcome to tell me! I can't promise to be swayed, though.;-D

[inventrix]

I was gonna make a walkthrough video but it's proving too much of a pain so. XD

Basically I think it would really match your described outlining style well. Each document has a "note card" attached to it, where you could write your outline point as the synopsis. You can create documents as subdocuments, allowing you to nest/tier your outline.

It has an actual Outline view which displays them as a nested list, as well as the navigation sidebar which does much the same. The Outline view also can be set to show the Total Word Count, which shows the words for each document, and also the sum of the words in all the subdocuments.

Additionally, the 'Scrivenings' view, which is basically the document view and what you do the actual writing from, shows you whatever document you have selected, meaning that it flows all of the subdocuments into each other.

You can also create as many folders other than Drafts and Research as you want, which I find super great for character profiles.

I did take some descriptive screenshots for you!

Outline view
Scrivenings view
Footnoooootes
Character Profiles

[aldersprig]

I got carried away when I left gaps, and filled in with lots and lots of dialogue.

[inventrix]

I was counting on that happening to me and then it didn't. *woeful*

[clare_dragonfly]

(I like dramatic pauses.)

We've noticed :-P

P. S. ♥ ♥ ♥ Scrivener ♥ ♥ ♥ Did you know you can try it for 30 days free?