Plotting

You know what it's like when you go somewhere riding in the passenger's seat with a driver who knows where they're going? You spend the trip looking at the scenery, chatting, knitting, drinking your latte, and all of a sudden you are there and you have no idea how you got there. The next time you have to find that same place, you will have to figure out how to get there yourself. Well, all these years reading novels, that's what I've done. Riding along paying little attention to which road the author is taking me down or what direction we are headed or why. Just going along for the ride.

Because the plot has to make sense and has to take the reader where you want them to go, creating a plot line for a novel is like suddenly being in the driver's seat and wishing you'd paid more attention to directions. Creating a plot line is like drawing a map or giving someone directions. Your characters need directions so they'll know where to go. They need a roadmap. That is what the plot is, it's like a roadmap for your characters.

In order to create a roadmap for your characters you have to know where they will be starting from. That's the backstory. You have to know where they will end up. That's the climax and denouement. You have to identify landmarks and places where they may get lost in between those two places. Those would be plot points and reversals. You want readers to enjoy the scenery. That's setting. You want this to be a journey readers will want to spend money on the gas it's going to take to get there. That's your break out title, compelling first line, first paragraph, first page.

Interesting that making maps is sometimes called plotting. I've always liked drawing maps. That's a start.

More later.