With NaNoWriMo around the corner, I thought I might show you how I plotted my novel.
This is the story structure I used:
0% inciting incident
0%-20%introduction in the world, ends with a point of no return
20% first plot point: the hero receives his marching orders
20%-50% response to the first plot point
35% first pinch point: reminder of the nature of the antagonistic force
50% midpoint: big fat plot twist that changes the hero’s AND reader’s experience
50%-80% attack: the stakes are higher now
65% second pinch point: again reminding the reader of the antagonistic forces at hand
80% second plot point: the final injection of new information into the story to give the hero everything she needs to become the primary catalyst in the story’s conclusion (no new information past this point)
80%-100% resolution + final conflict + return home
I didn’t make this up. I think it’s by Larry Brooks, if The Internet informs me correctly. Fun Fact: once you pay attention to it, you’ll see this structure everywhere. Just take a look at any Harry Potter book, for example.
These points are the “bones” of my story. Next, I decided what “flesh” to put on them.
I simply made a list of things I like to read about:
Books about books and libraries
Magic
Quirky characters
Intelligent, fast-paced and sometimes silly
So, I combined this list and the structure points into a story that makes sense. Because I don’t want to spoil my plot / I am still to shy about my wip, I will make up a new plot for this post, so I can show you.
0%: The hero does something magical without knowing how she did it. She discards it, because everybody knows it can’t have been real.
0%-20%: We see the daily life of the hero: she is unhappy because all she wants to do is read, but she is not allowed to. She reads in the dead of night and is punished for it by her evil stepcousin. She finds a book on magic.
20% It all clicks together: she can do magic!
20%-50% The daily life for the hero changes. Instead of reading all night, she practices magic. She now loves books even more. She has little victories over her evil stepcousin, but hasn’t won yet.
35% The evil stepcousin finds out that she can do magic and takes away the magic book.
50% She discovers she can do magic without the book.
50%-80% The hero is not the only one who is bullied by the evil stepcousin. Her younger cousin is a victim as well, and he doesn’t have magic to defend himself. The stakes are raised, this is bigger than herself now. The younger cousin also wants to read, so they have several bonding moments over reading.
65% The evil stepcousin hurts the younger cousin, he’s in a coma now.
80% The hero discovers the evil stepcousin could do all these evil things because he knows magic too.
80%-100% The hero confronts the evil stepcousin, fights him off, nearly loses but wins in the end. He gives up and releases his power over the younger cousin who wakes up from the coma.
It’s not the most genius plot ever, but I literally made this up in minutes. So can you! And imagine the genius plot you can come up with if you spend more than a few minutes on it.
Then I calculated how many scenes I need in which part of the story. My wip is a YA or 12+ book, so I want it to contain about 75,000 words in total. I want my scenes to be around 1,000 words long to keep it snappy, so I need 75 scenes.
Scene number 1 (0%) is the inciting incident, scene number 15 (20%) is the first plot point, scene number 26 (35%) is the first pinch point, scene number 37 (50%) is the midpoint, scene number 49 (65%) is the second pinch point, scene number 60 (80%) is the second plot point and scene 75 (100%) is the last scene.
Some sidenotes on the 1,000-word scenes:
That’s more of a vague rule of thumb than a strict rule. If your scene needs to be longer or shorter, make it longer or shorter of course. My wip has some 2,300-word scenes as well.
Having 1,000-word scenes does not mean I have 1,000-word chapters, that would be really short. I will divide my novel into chapters after I’m finished writing my first draft.
For NaNoWriMo, maybe you could write scenes of 1,667 words, so you do one scene per day. A 50,000-word novel has 30 scenes of 1,667 words. Inciting incident is at scene 1, first plot point at scene 6, first pinch point at scene 11, midpoint at scene 15, second pinch point at scene 20, second plot point at scene 24 and scene 30 is your last scene. That’s just an idea, you got to see what works for you.
Then I made up in one sentence what will happen in every scene. For example: “They meet the dragon and he sends them on a sidequest.” Now my outline consists of 75 one-sentence scenes. This way, I prevent the problem of the sagging middle and other pacing problems and I still get to surprise myself when writing.
And that’s my first draft! I hope everything is clear. Feel free to ask me questions if it isn’t.
I’m gonna tag a few people I admire, who I hope are interested. If you aren’t, feel free to ignore me, or message me to take you off my tag list. If you would like to be added to my writing advice tag list, let me know.
Even if you’re a pantser, you need a plan for NaNoWriMo because you don’t want to waste your precious writing time with research and mulling over plot points that go nowhere.
What you need:
A Plot. Just the very basics. Beginning, middle, end and what ever you know about special scenes that come to your mind. Notes on scrap paper or an unsorted list are just fine.
Characters. You have to know something about your main characters. Write down their names, gender, species and quirks.
World facts. You don’t need Tolkien levels of worldbuilding but you want to write down the basic facts about your world so that you don’t have to worry about it as you write. Again, this can be just notes on scrap paper.
That’s it.
You will add to all of this of course as the story grows, you will learn more about your characters and about your world and you can just add it to your notes. But this is your base to grow your story on.
We’ve all been there. Staring at our planning document with a long list of characters who are like our children. We love every single one of them, but what about the reader? Will they get confused? Will they be able to keep track? Will they care about any of your characters if they don’t get enough page time?
If these questions have plagued you, it might be time to think about who gets the chop. To help with the dilemma, I have put together a list of questions to ask yourself.
What does each character bring to the story thematically?
List what each character does to advance the plot?
Could any of these things easily be done by another character?
Do they all have distinctive personalities?
Do they all have distinctive mannerisms/speech/appearances?
If you’re struggling to answer these with a clear yes or no, it might be time to bin some characters. Bonus questions to consider are:
Is there potential to merge two characters into one?
Does this character need a name, or are they just an extra?
Hope this helped!
[If reposting to Instagram, please credit @isabellestonebooks]
We can’t assume that everyone knows the world we’re talking about, right? Luckily, author and previous Camp NaNoWriMo counselorCass Morrishas a few suggestions to help us more deeply explore our worldbuilding:
One of the most powerful things we can do as writers is create a world. What we write holds a mirror up to reality, where we can examine and criticize our own world or try to build a better one. We get to play god with our characters, and in doing so, we exercise a great deal of power in what we choose to reflect, to magnify, to laud, and to condemn.
So how can we make interesting choices, rather than relying on stale tropes, biased perspectives, or common assumptions about “the way things are” or “the way things were”?
Here are five basic concepts I suggest you explore to develop a richly detailed and unique world:
1. Family
What is a family structure? Is marriage tied to finances, or is it a purely emotional bond? Do you live with your spouse? Do you raise kids together? Is sexual fidelity expected? How many people can be in a marriage? Does “legitimacy” mean anything to family bonds? To inheritance? Is adoption common?
2.Gender & Sexuality
What sexualities are socially permissible? How does your world conceive of gender? Does it accept third genders, nonbinary people, gender fluidity? If your world has rigid gender roles, or if one gender has more power and privilege than the other, make sure that’s a choice you examine, not just something you presume.
3. Race
What do race relations and ideas of ethnicity look like in your world? A historical or invented world may conceive identity very differently than we do today. If you have aliens or fantasy races, like elves, dwarves, or goblins, examine them carefully to avoid perpetuating racist stereotypes or erasing real-world issues with a handwave. I recommend Writing the Other as an excellent resource to help you think through these ideas respectfully).
4. The Afterlife and Religion
What do your characters believe happens to them when they die? This can affect so much else in a society: how eager or reluctant they are for war, how they preserve assets for future generations, how they conceive of sin and virtue. So what’s your basis? Gods or no gods? Ancestor worship? Natural spirits? And how exclusionary is it? Can your various cults play nice together, or are they trying to wipe each other out?
5. Government
Who has power, how do they get it, and how do they hold onto it? There are so many options beyond “ye olde feudalism” and our modern conception of representative republics. Figure out what your structure is, how it came to be that way, and what other beliefs and structures, like religion or the military, it might be tied to.
These basic concepts will touch many other elements of your characters’ lives, from architecture to economy to warfare. They can also help generate wonderful, inventive plot hooks; in making deliberate choices about your world, you may find new challenges and opportunities for your characters.
While worldbuilding is typically associated with fantasy and science fiction, it’s important to real-world genres as well. The world in your book, whether invented or a version of our own, should be as diverse and complex as the world your readers live in. In historical fiction, the challenge is often in distinguishing what “everyone knows” about a period from the lived reality of people during that time. In a modern romance or thriller or anything else, details as small as what someone thinks of as a “normal” lunch can communicate elements of that character’s personal history and the world they operate in.
Make interesting choices. Your readers will be grateful.
Cass Morris works as a writer and educator in central Virginia. Her debut series, The Aven Cycle, is Roman-flavored historical fantasy released by DAW Books. She is also one-third of the team behind the Hugo Award Finalist podcast Worldbuilding for Masochists. She holds a Master of Letters from Mary Baldwin University and a BA in English and History from the College of William and Mary. She reads voraciously, wears corsets voluntarily, and will beat you at MarioKart. You can find her on Twitter,Instagram,TikTok, and Patreon. Make sure to check out The Aven Cycle andWorldbuilding for Masochists.
