Teen Author Challenge, Week 8 – Plotting strategies, the final chapter

Before we get rolling with TAC, be sure to check out Jennifer Hopwood’s lie from Friday’s Librarian Spotlight feature. Did you guess it?

As we wrap up our four-part plotting/pantsing mini-series this week, I’m going to be talking about what my plotting method is.

On the pantsing to plotting spectrum, I’m way the heck over on the plotting side. I’m not in off-the-charts plotting land, but I can see it from my office window.

Before I sit down to write, I need to know exactly what happens in the story and why. That means doing a scene-by-scene outline of the entire story in advance. For me, plotting is the largest chunk of my writing process. I’ll jot down ideas, move things around, and spend a lot of time playing “What if?”

But…

No matter how much time I spend plotting, sometimes… sometimes… even the best laid plans can go awry. Which is why I’m kicking things off this week with this inspirational quote from Laurel Snyder.

Exclusive TAC Quote of the Week

“Your job, as a writer, is to get out of the way. You have to learn to sit back, read what you have scribbled down, and pay attention to where the story is taking you—to the best place the story is taking you. Even if that doesn’t happen to be where you meant it to go. Incidentally, the same advice holds true for taking a road trip, making delicious soup, or having a really good conversation. Tight control is the enemy of accidental wonderfulness.”

~ Laurel Snyder
Any Which Wall
(Random House, 5/09)

Teen Author Challenge, Week 8

We’ve talked about a lot of plotting and pantsing methods over the last few weeks. And many of you have asked which method I use. I actually use a modified version of Michael Hauge’s Six-Stage Plotting Method (a three-act structure).

I wish I could say that I discovered this method was a perfect fit for me in the very beginning and I’ve been plotting happily ever since. And I guess I could say that. If I wanted to be a Lying McLiarPants.

The truth is I tried just about every plotting method out there over the course of about six years. Some were too simplistic and some were so complex that I’d end up plotting myself in circles.

I had written an early draft of The Cinderella Society using a mish-mash of plotting techniques. And had loads of false starts along the way. But I had the good fortune to sit through two workshops by Michael Hauge at the RWA national conference in Dallas during the summer of 2007. Some of the finer points of his technique didn’t resonate with me, but the fundamentals did. Michael created a modified version of the three-act play structure that was based on the one thing I naturally understood:

Turning Points

Every story has turning points. Turning points are when everything your character has been working toward changes, for better or for worse. Sometimes a turning point means finally taking a step forward, getting a long-awaited win on the journey to success. Sometimes it means taking a step backward (or five or ten steps backward) when things go awry or the hero veers off the path he’s meant to be on.

Just out of curiosity, I came home and mapped out that early draft of The Cinderella Society on Hauge’s basic plotting chart and… lo and behold… my turning points in the story mapped almost exactly to the turning points he laid out on the chart. Hauge has an excellent article on his web site explaining his Six-Stage Plotting Method in great detail. I highly recommend reading it. There’s a ton going on in his method, only some of which I use in my own plotting efforts. And he uses very cool movie examples (Erin Brockovich and Gladiator) to highlight each phase of his process.

Each of Hauge’s six stages are separated by a turning point with a special significance. Seeing him clearly explain each of those five turning points and what their significance is was a huge lightbulb moment for me. It was how my mind naturally thought about story structure though I’d never been able to articulate it before. The turning points help me make sure my pacing is even and my turning points are big enough to sustain the middle of the book. In its most basic form, here’s how his turning point system works.

Turning Point #1 – OPPORTUNITY (10% into the manuscript)
The main character (we’ll make her a female, our heroine) gets an opportunity (surprise, right?) to do something or be something entirely different. Our heroine’s ordinary world is going to change dramatically if she grabs this opportunity and runs with it.

Turning Point #2 – CHANGE OF PLANS (25% into the manuscript)
Everything’s been moving along in one direction with our heroine working toward her new goal (as a result of the Opportunity). But now there’s a change, a little shift in the direction. Sometimes it’s a big surprise and sometimes it’s a subtle change, not even noticeable to the character herself. But it’s a change that’s put our heroine on a new path, whether she realizes it or not.

Turning Point #3 – POINT OF NO RETURN (50% into the manuscript)
This turning point is all about choices. It’s about making a choice that means there is absolutely no going back. It might be a decision that burns bridges or that takes away a safety net (real or perceived) that the character has had up until that point. If the going ever got too rough, our heroine knew she could throw in the towel or turn back. But not anymore. Once she passes this turning point, it’s Vegas or bust.

Turning Point #4 – Major Setback (75% into the manuscript)
So the heroine is working her butt off and doing everything she can to overcome the obstacles thrown in her path. And just as she thinks she’s got success in sight… whammo. Something happens that throws everything she’s worked so hard for into complete turmoil. Often, the character (and occasionally the reader) may think there’s no way our heroine can possibly succeed now.

Turning Point #5 – Climax (90% into the manuscript)
But our heroine is no sissy missy. She’s made of stronger stuff than that. So she makes one last run for her dream, no matter what the odds. And it all ends with this turning point where she either does or doesn’t accomplish the final goal. It all comes down to this.

So there you go, a really rough (okay, extremely rough) breakdown of Hauge’s five turning points. For me, knowing what these five points are in the story overall helps me to break down what happens in between them more logically. Logic is king in my plotting world.

For me, however, this is only the beginning. I need to know exactly how to get from each turning point to the next before I sit down to write or I end up filling pages with scene after scene of entertaining (at least to me) fluff. The plotting process often takes me months of preparation. But the good news is that once I know what each scene’s purpose is, my first draft only takes a matter of weeks to write.

When I scrapped two years’ worth of work on The Cinderella Society and blew the story wide open with a new bigger society premise, it literally took months for me to piece it all together. But the first draft only took me 25 days to write. That’s the great thing about the method for me. When I sit down to write, I know the story inside and out. But the way those scenes happen–the dialogue, the humor, the character quirks–unfold very organically on the page. They often surprise me. So it’s the best of both worlds for me.

But that’s just what works for me. And it took a lo-o-ong time to figure out that’s how I work best. The great thing is that once you know what works for you, it is a tremendous confidence booster. It also relieves an enormous amount of “What in the heck am I doing???” stress.

That’s always a plus.

And thus ends our plotting/pantsing mini-series. We’ve covered a lot of different techniques and you’ve had the chance to play with many of them. Which is good because next we’re getting ready to put our money where our mouths are. That’s right, next week we begin the meat of the Teen Author Challenge: completing our first draft.

But first, today’s challenge!

Your Weekly Challenge

Grab your Teen Author Challenge notebook and write down the names of the five turning points above. Take fifteen minutes and jot down notes about the scene that defines each turning point in your own story. See if you can map out the major turning points to give your story a bit more structure than you started out with.

For this week’s participation, post a note below about how this process felt to you. Sharing something cool that you discovered about your story along the way gets you an extra entry into the Teen Author Challenge monthly giveaway!

The Teen Author Challenge Contest

Throughout the year-long Teen Author Challenge (TAC ends June 2010!), I’ll be giving away a book of the winner’s choice from my personal writing shelf. Why am I doing this? Because becoming a skilled writer has two important parts: learning about your craft and practicing your craft. That’s why active participation in each weekly challenge is so important!

So what can you win? Books to choose from include:

1. The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler
2. Your Novel Proposal: From Creation to Contract by Blythe Camenson and Marshall J. Cook
3. The Marshall Plan for Novel Writing by Evan Marshall
4. The Career Novelist by Donald Maass
5. Writing Dialogue by Tom Chiarella
6. Mastering Point of View by Sherri Szeman
7. Creating Characters Kids Will Love by Elaine Marie Alphin
8. Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass
9. Building Believable Characters by Marc McCutcheon

Everyone who participates via the comments on the Teen Author Challenge posts will be entered into this monthly contest.

Go forth and be creative!

Entry Filed under: Paying It Forward,Teen Author Challenge