Marathon Plot Training for NaNoWriMo

In less than 2 hours, pre-plot the characters and events and ideas you're imagining for your NaNoWriMo writing project.

The more organized your vision, the more productive your daily writing practice is for NaNoWriMo and otherwise.

The following steps take no longer than 5 - 9 minutes each. As simple as clicking the step you want and watching a video:

STEP ONE: Character and Goal (Part 1) -- Dramatic Action Plot

STEP TWO: Character Flaw -- Character Emotional Development Plot

STEP THREE: Setting -- Part 1: (Beginning 1/4) -- Ordinary World

STEP FOUR: Setting -- Part 2: (Middle 1/2) -- Extraordinary, Exotic, Unusual World

STEP FIVE: Three Major Plot Threads -- Character Emotional Development Plot, Dramatic Action Plot, Thematic Significance Plot + Romance Plot

STEP SIX: Secondary and Sub-plots

STEP SEVEN: Climax (Part 1) -- The End

STEP EIGHT: Climax (Part 2) -- The End

STEP NINE: Energy Anatomy of Stories -- Plot at the Overall Story Level

STEP TEN: Plot the Beginning

STEP ELEVEN: Turning Points

STEP TWELVE: Goal (Part 2) The Middle -- Dramatic Action Plot

STEP THIRTEEN: Antagonists for Protagonist and for the Writer

MORE TO COME...

Give yourself the gift of writing next month and show up everyday.

Goal Setting for Protagonist in Middle

I've written about goals in many posts and magazine articles. Following is partial list:

Long-Term versus Short-Term Protagonist Goals

Blah Protagonist

Connecting to the Character

Dialog -- When is Enough Too Much

Dreams versus Goals

If you're interested in more, watch the first (Step #1) and the latest (Step #12 -- specifically goal setting for the Middle of your story) video in the Plot Series: How Do I Plot a Novel, Memoir, Screenplay?

Turning Points

Turning points keep your story moving in surprising and organic directions to more fully engage the reader and audience and satisfy universal expectations.

I spoke about Turning Points in Step #11 of the wacky Plot Series posted on YouTube. 

I move with less resistance and greater joy if I follow the energy. The energy has taken me to presenting the information caught on the video camera rather than post the words here. 

So, rather than read plot tips, stop by and watch them.

Plot Series: How Do I Plot a Novel, Memoir, Screenplay?

The steps are presented in an organized format from Step One to Step Thirty-Two. We film Step 12 tomorrow.

Feel free to randomly click on any video. The 5 to 8 minute presentation will leave you energizes and with a new sensibility of your story.

This is all new to me. Hope you'll follow me into the great unknown...

Plot Series: How Do I Plot a Novel, Memoir, Screenplay?

Resistance and Writing

Saturday's plot workshop reminded me of how powerful writers' resistance is. I had forgotten.

The group was intimate and our time short. Plot in 5 hours working through lunch. I know from experience that all plot workshops build to a crisis point in the form of overwhelm generally expressed by the highly creative, big picture writers. Either the linear, detail oriented writers aren't as overtly demonstrative as the other group or the plot techniques of standing back to arrange the scenes of a story in a linear form are not as daunting for them.

A writer I had warned (foreshadowed) that he'd come to hate me, declared it so at the beginning of the 4th hour. At around the same time, another writer stood up. First her face crumbled, then she fell apart. I won't go into the details here but before long she reclaimed her authority over herself and the first writer assured me he was only kidding.

I'm grateful for the wake-up call. I had done what I promised myself I would never do. I lost touch with how it feels to be convinced I'd never understand plot. My mission is not to rob you of your power but to empower you. It took me nearly 12 years to learn what I was trying to teach in 5 hours on Saturday. What can I say? I'm a concrete learner. People like me weren't teaching plot with pictures when I was learning to write. 

It's different now. Plot is the cool thing. I'm glad.

But, I never want to forget knowing the part resistance plays in interfering with forward progress. 

Both writers came into the workshop knowing exactly what part of their story was not working. The first writer had been told his beginning didn't work by very important gatekeepers in the trade. The second writer knew her crisis wasn't quite right.

They understood they needed to fix something in their story on an intellectual level. The knowing had not traveled deeply enough, making it impossible for either one of them to give up what they had written. First came denial. Then anger. Finally, I believe and hope, they left with concrete "fixes" though, I fear, work is left to be done before either one of them come to a place of true acceptance. 

My question is: how do we so easily take ownership and control over the creative process? When does that happen? At first, it's a marvel, a miracle, a delight when words flood out of us from some unknown and sacred place. 

The story comes through us. Our job is to present what comes in a pleasing form to the reader and audience. That takes setting ourselves aside and opening our minds for the greatest good of the story. 

Santa Cruz Traveling Mystery Tour

Win a free one-hour plot consultation! 

Correctly identify all 32 Santa Cruz iconic landmarks used as the backdrop in the filming of the Santa Cruz Traveling Mystery Tour

PRIZES

· Locals win an overnight stay at the Darling House in Santa Cruz on Valentine’s Day

· Out-of-towners win a 1-hour phone consultation with family expert Cathy Jo Cresss on sibling reconciliation and forgiveness and a 1-hour writer's plot phone consultation with plot expert to the stars Martha Alderson, aka the Plot Whisperer

More than 144 billion videos were viewed on YouTube last year. The number is expected to more than double this year.

My cohort on the Santa Cruz Traveling Mystery Tour is Cathy Jo Cress, author of the just released Mom Loves You Best; Forgiving and Forging Sibling Relationships. She and I recently harnessed the power of YouTube, by launching our own individual channels that highlight local attractions on the Santa Cruz Traveling Mystery Tour. 

In the Plot Series, How Do I Plot a Novel, Memoir, Screenplay?, I take writers through the process of plotting out a story. Cathy's videos show how sibling relationships affect our lives and how to fix them in her Mom Loves You Best series.

Together we have planned a 32-step series to be filmed at famed Santa Cruz landmarks.

We began our YouTube series by filming near the renowned surfing spot the HOOK in Pleasure Point. We moved to the Yacht Harbor where we filmed each other sharing tips in our individual areas of expertise.

32 unique, beautiful, literary and historic locations in Santa Cruz County, such as the Surfer Statue, Mystery Spot, Natural Bridges, in front of Town Clock, Tom Scribner statue on the mall in front of Bookshop SC, the whale Marine Lab and the one by SC Museum, UCSC viewpoint with the whole bay on view, Cement Boat view, SC Library with Alfred Hitchcock birds statue/sculpture to name a few, serve as backdrops for our productions from now until January 31, 2011.

Correctly identify all 32 locations and be eligible for a drawing for a free night at the Darling House on February 14, 2011

Visit either or both YouTube channels to spot the Santa Cruz landmark that serves as the backdrop for each video. A new video (or 2) comes out every week.

Plot Series, How Do I Plot a Novel, Memoir, Screenplay?

Mom Loves You Best.

 

I deeply appreciate any help you can offer in getting the word out about the Plot Series. Please feel free to pass along the link to your writing buddies interested in pre-plotting for NaNoWriMo or simply eager to start a new story. I'm out to impress a national publishing house interested in picking up my best-selling self-published Blockbuster Plots Pure & Simple. Cathy is promoting the launch of her new book. 

The End is the Beginning

A plot consultation this week reveals to the writer that the scene sequence she believed was rising to the Crisis rather represents the Halfway Point... perfectly.

Undoubtedly she was disappointed to find she is only halfway through writing the 1st draft of her story rather than 3/4 finished. Still, she knew the story needed the additional page count and by the time we hung up she sounded enthusiastic and empowered to write her way to the Crisis.

Thanks to my background with working with children with learning disabilities (and my own), I appreciate the process of learning new material and find helpful explaining new concepts in as many different ways as I can think of at the time.

The idea of putting her main character in the sort of peril her story demands at the Crisis took to time to penetrate her consciousness on a practical level. She knew intellectually what the Crisis represents to a story. She even had an example in her head of the exact moment in a favorite book of hers. However, to actually bring the concept of the Crisis down to the actual moment-by-moment action necessary to bring the protagonist to her knees and die to her old personality took time.

The writer knows her Climax which I always view as helpful to a writer because the Climax informs all the other parts of the story.

With the Climax fixed in her mind and the scenes waiting to be written to the Crisis and her commitment to herself to a timeframe, she's off and writing...

For more on the Climax and what to keep in mind as your write your way there, view Steps 7 & Step 8 of the Plot Series: How do I Plot a Novel, Memoir, Screenplay?

For information on the contest we're running with the series (I'm doing it with fellow writer -- 

Cathy Cress who has a terrific new book out: Mom Loves You Best; Forgiving and Forging New Sibling Relationships): go to Santa Cruz Traveling Mystery Tour.

Depicting Character Emotion

To depict character emotion beyond the cliches -- slamming things down and shouting when angry, dancing and singing when joyful -- takes having felt the emotion yourself as a writer or the intuitive ability to detect the subtle exaggeration of common external behaviors that signal deeper emotion.

We are not always encouraged to acknowledge our true emotions -- especially so, women, or so I wonder. Women of a certain generation, mine, were taught to be the peacemakers at all cost, to sweep the raw, edgy emotions out of sight of others which also became more comfortable for ourselves, too.

No wonder many of us have difficulty showing authentic human emotions in our characters in true and fresh ways. 

Subsequent generations have been encouraged to explore feelings and express them more honestly. I wonder if that is true and makes it any easier to conjure up unique shows of emotion??

The little notebook and pencil you carry with you everywhere comes in handy to record people's show of emotion -- both authentic and inauthentic emotions.  

(NOTE: Steps #7 in the Plot Series: How Do I Plot a Novel, Memoir, Screenplay?

should be up later today)

Authentic Details Reflect Character's Inner Life & Change within the Story

Once you have your first, second, third + drafts written and you're set on the overall plot, major scenes and turning points, character growth and transformation, and have a sense of your overall theme, turn your attention to "every word perfect."

I know, by the time you've written countless drafts, you're eager (desperate!) to send your story out for feedback from your agent or to query to entice an agent to request your manuscript. If you can hold back, take the time to print out a hard copy of your novel, memoir, or screenplay and read every word with an analytical mind -- can you pump up that common verb for a punchier one? Substitute that cliche with a fresh way of understanding her sensibilities?

Where a character lives; the clothes she wears; the car she drives; what she keeps in her medicine cabinet; her refrigerator; her make-up bag; choice of pictures on the wall of her apartment, townhouse, or mansion  are all an externalization of the character's inner life and mean something. 

Authentic Details in the Beginning, Middle, End:

In the Beginning (1/4)*** of the story, the authentic details you relay reflect the character as she is starting out the story.

In the Middle (1/2)***, the details shift to reflect her as she journeys into the great unknown. 

The authentic details she surrounds herself with at the End (1/4)*** reveals the character's true, authentic details -- hers and hers alone -- and deepens the reader's understanding of who the character is now = the character's ultimate transformation. 

Oh, and now is a great time to grab your pen and pad of paper and follow along with the Plot Series:How Do I Plot a Novel, Memoir, Screenplay? to plot your next story. That way, when every word is perfect in the story you're finishing up now, you'll have the next one all plotted and ready to go... That's the plan, anyway... Hope you stop by...

(***These divisions are not rules based on formula but guidelines based on the energetic form of the Universal Story)

Freedom for Writers in Santa Cruz

As you write forward toward the Climax of your story, a little voice in your head whispers the need to go back and fix what you now know is awful, horrid or simply not working in the beginning. Over and over you silence the voice, stumbling to the End of the Beginning, the Halfway Point, the Crisis, the Climax, the Resolution.

It's difficult to resist the pull to go back and start again.

I'm feeling the pull big time right now. I followed the energy to do this wacky YouTube Plot Series. If you ask me how it happened, I'd have to say it came exactly like a new story. Inspiration hit. Helpful people lined up. I jumped in with both feet and very little, if any pre-plotting.

I know, I know. Flying by the seat-of-my-pants goes against my grain as a plotter but I knew if I didn't just start, I'd find all sorts of reason to back down and never do it.

Now approaching the End of the Beginning of the Plot Series -- everything needed for a plot has been introduced. All the story elements are lining up and in place. A surprising and wonderful subplot appeared out of nowhere and thus, we introduce the Santa Cruz Traveling Mystery Tour (a night at the Darling House in Santa Cruz is the grand prize). One more step, and we jump in and actually get to the plotting -- as a verb. 

Time to get organized. Meeting with my partner in crime, we're plotting out all the locations for the background and Traveling Mystery Tour, dates to shoot, etc. Will be nice to have a plan, a plot planner, a map, a guide to keep us on track while we're busy following the energy.

Still, I so want to go back and re-shoot Step One. Don't get me wrong, the content of the first step is good, great actually. But, I'm hiding in a bush, a dog is whining to be with us, I'm speaking slowly, feels almost like slow motion language... Plus, we hadn't come up with the idea of shooting the videos with local Santa Cruz landmarks in the background. The list goes on. 

I like to advise writers to follow the energy. Whatever you have energy for, you'll bring a freshness to it. Thus, if the energy keeps pulling you back, should you go? Hmmm... I still say resist and find a way to create positive energy for the writing even when most difficult.

If you go back now, you may never find your way back.

And so I resist going back. Might as well keep my focus forward and see what comes. 

I can always go back and re-shoot later. 

Onward and upward -- my wish for you and to find the energy to keep writing forward to the end and my wish for the Plot Series, too.

Oh, and I nearly forgot to mention: Step 6 is up. Absolutely incredible backdrop...

3 Major Plot Lines + 1 in Novels, Memoir, Screenplays

For a story to have meaning, the dramatic action forces the character to grow and change at the least, transform at best.

Each of these threads = dramatic action, character emotional development and thematic significance runs through every great picture book, middle grade fiction, young adult and adult novels whether genre or literary, all memoirs and screenplays. 

All other plot lines are determined by age and type of story. However, one other plot line is in most stories, other than picture books and middle grade fiction = romantic plot line.

The 5th step in the Plot Series of How Do I Plot a Novel, Memoir, Screenplay? covers this 4th plot line. Hope you'll visit and follow along.