Tip: Plot Planning (or Not)

Okay, first I want to say: don't forget that my dear friend, wonderful person, and author of the bestselling page-turner The Secret Diary of Anne Boleyn, Robin Maxwell, will be reading from her terrific new book The Wild Irish in the Los Angeles area tomorrow night, Thursday, November 6, at 7 pm at Dutton's Brentwood, 11975 San Vincente Blvd. Apparently there will be live Irish music there! The Wild Irish is about the real-life Irish pirate queen Grace O'Malley, her adventures, her husbands, and her relationship and rivalry with the most powerful woman of her age, Queen Elizabeth I. Now doesn't that sound like a fun evening? I'm going so I'll see you there.

Okay, now on to the tip.

A friend (hi!) emailed me, "Maybe you can write something on your blog about how you outline a story--e.g., how detailed you get, how much forethought you put into the plot before you start writing."

Well, here's the deal. I honestly don't put that much thought into it. I don't outline, not even novels, although sometimes when I'm partway through I look at what I've done and organize and try to plan a little. But I don't begin with an outline. I often don't know how something is going to develop or end until I am writing it. I see where my energy goes, and what seems to drive and interest me about the characters and the situations, and let the story kind of reveal itself. Someimes I definitely write things that I toss out later because of this. They were explorations, and I learned something from them about the piece, but for whatever reason they didn't go where, in the end, I felt compelled to go. If I don't know what to do next, I stop, let it simmer, and pick it up again when I get a new idea.

I have since learned there is a fancy name for this: organic writer. So thank goodness it is not simple laziness, as I first suspected.

Not all writers are like this. Some of them begin with clear, detailed ideas about exactly what they want to have happen, and very clear plans. They need to think it out, make notes and get an outline on paper before they begin. If you are one of those writers, it is perfectly okay. Everyone has a different process.

In fact, you may do far better than me at plot, which is my weak point. I constantly need to struggle to put in enough complexities to satisfy the reader, instead of just indulging my own emotional needs in the writing. For some writers (including my filmmaker screenwriter husband), these plot twists and turns come more naturally than they do to me. (The buzz is that J.K. Rowling has known the basic outline and plot of the entire Harry Potter series, including the remaining unwritten ones, since the very first book.)

I will say that if you are an outlining writer, you want to make sure that you aren't so wedded to your outline that you adhere to it slavishly even though you get other ideas. You should explore those ideas. And also, you shouldn't spend so much time getting your outline perfect that you never get around to writing your story or novel; this is a common diversionary tactic among our kind. Yes, it is.

Hey, has anyone gotten around to staging their own readings/events yet? Fall is such a good time for this. See my entry about it on Oct. 14 - it's easy and it so much beats sitting at home watching Seinfeld reruns. If you have, email me and let me know how it went, I'd love to hear. My email's under the links over at the right.