In my dream world, I’m a plotter. I plan my entire story in advance, and my characters fall into place with my vision. I hit no bumps on the road, I always reach my daily word count goals, and I’m in complete control at all times.
In reality, I fall between the plotters and the pantsers of the writing world. I need to have a feel for my characters before I start, plus a rough outline of the plot. Without this, my staring-at-a-blank-screen time increases substantially. However, experience has shown me that I don’t truly know who my characters are – or where their story is going – until well into the first draft. Consequently, the detailed charts and notes I create during the pre-writing stage are heavily revised before tackling the second draft. I accept this, and regard the charts as a jumping off point for my story. They give me a sense of security, particularly when I have a bad writing day and feel as if I’m floundering.
My first pre-writing task is to create GMC charts for my hero and heroine. If my story requires a villain or antagonist, I’ll also make one for them. My GMC charts are based on Debra Dixon’s excellent writing craft book, GMC: Goal, Motivation and Conflict. The concepts Dixon lays forth are simple: every character needs to have strong internal and external goals or desires, plausible motivations for wanting to attain these goals, and sufficient sustainable conflict to prevent them from achieving their goals by the end of Chapter One. My pre-writing GMC charts are rudimentary, but they give me an idea of who my characters are and what they want. I flesh out my characters’ GMC charts as I write my first draft.
In addition to the GMC charts, I complete a character interview worksheet. The one I use is based on Kate Walker’s characterisation worksheet in her 12 Point Guide to Writing Romance. I don’t fill in all the questions at this stage (there are 62 in Kate’s version and over 70 in mine), but I note essential information such as the character’s age, basic appearance, level of education, and family background. I have mini worksheets for secondary characters in order to keep track of their eye colours, ages, and so on. While I’ve never forgotten my hero or heroine’s vital statistics, I frequently pick up on inconsistencies with my secondary characters while revising my story.
My next job is to create a (very) rough outline of my plot. At this point, I focus on the major turning points in my story, and leave out subplots. As I work with the four-act structure, my stories usually have three major turning points, a.k.a. dramatic events which change the course of the story and present the main characters with new hurdles which they have to overcome to achieve their HEA. Some romance writers count the First Kiss and First Sex Scene as major turning points. I don’t do this, but I do try to make the major turning points things which will derail or threaten the development of the romantic story arc.
While creating my working outline, I make a note of essential scenes. These include the opening scene; the introduction to the heroine and the hero, preferably from their respective points of view; the first major turning point; the first kiss; the first sex scene; the second major turning point; the third major turning point; the Black Moment; the resolution to the main conflict; and the final scene. So I start out with about ten scenes I know must be in my story. The others will be concerned with getting me from one key scene to the next, or with the development of the subplots.
Bitter experience (i.e.: my last book) taught me to start tracking the timeline early on. Unless it’s of relevance to the action, readers don’t necessarily need to know that a particular scene takes place on the morning of Tuesday the 12th of March. But if you want to avoid your heroine wearing a winter coat three months later, as I did, making a note of when a scene takes place saves a lot of headaches during revisions. It also makes it far easier to alter the details if you decide to change the order in which certain scenes take place. I include notes on when the key scenes are likely to take place in my initial chart and adjust as required.
Another vital pre-writing chart is my word count spreadsheet. Unless the book I’m writing is aimed at Harlequin/Mills & Boon – and my previous two were – the word count target is more of a minimum number of words for my first draft than a precise goal for the finished product. I work with the four-act structure, meaning my story has three major turning points before my characters resolve their problems and live happily ever after. To have a concrete example, I’ll use the figures for my current WIP, a 90,000-word historical romantic suspense set in early Nineteenth Century Ireland. (This is the story I spent the early part of the week blank-screening; don’t worry, it’s flowing now!)
Total: 90,000 words or 360 pages
Act I: 20% or 22,500 words or 90 pages
Act II: 28.33% or 25,500 words or 102 pages
Act III: 28.33% or 25,500 words or 102 pages
Act IV: 18% or 16,500 words or 66 pages
By breaking my story into chunks, and identifying the key scenes I need to include in each chunk, I already have an overview of where I need to go. This makes the task of writing 360 pages less daunting.
Then I go one step further in my word count chart: I break the acts into scenes. Working on the basis that an average scene (for me) is around 1,500 words, I need 60 scenes in my book. I put 15 in Act I, 17 in Act II, 17 in Act III, and 11 in Act IV.
Note: When I talk about an average scene length, I don’t mean to imply that all my scenes are the same length. My key scenes are usually much longer, and some transitional scenes can be as short as 500 words. Setting a 1,500-word goal merely gives me something to shoot for when I’m sketching out the first draft of each scene.
My last pre-writing task is to set a timetable with weekly goals. In the case of my current WIP, my timetable consists of a weekly word count goal spread over five days, plus two days reserved for research. While the setting of my historical romance is one I’m already very familiar with, there will be details I’ll need to research as I go along, and facts to double check.
As with my other pre-writing charts, the timetable is subject to change. Real life stuff such as illness, insomnia, and family commitments crop up. But by creating deadlines, and trying my best to stick to them, I’m treating writing as my job. 2012 will be a busy year, but I’m hoping to have the rough first draft of this story done by the end of March. I’m planning to take April and May off, and start the second draft in June. (Baby Three is due the end of March. I know from experience that I’ll get no writing done for the first few weeks.)
My next post, scheduled for Wednesday, will look at tackling the day-to-day realities of writing a first draft, and what I do when I hit a snag.
Recommended Reading and Workshops for the Pre-Writing Stage:
Rhonda Helms’s Plotting Workshop – Rhonda is an editor for Carina Press. I took this workshop in November 2011 and loved it. Like me, she loves GMC and spreadsheets. I found her lesson on integrating subplots particularly useful as they are something I’ve struggled with in the past.
Sherry Lewis’s workshop booklets Plotting the Organic Way and Creating Characters with Character are extremely useful.
Alexandra Sokoloff’s craft book, Screenwriting Tricks for Authors – A great way to plot. Her Dark Salon blog is also a goldmine of information.
Michael Hauge’s two workshops from the 2011 RWA conference, Uniting Plot Structure and Character Arc and From Identitiy to Essence: Love Stories and Transformation.
GMC: Goal, Motivation and Conflict by Debra Dixon One of my absolute favourite craft books.
Kate Walker’s 12 Point Guide to Writing Romance. The characterisation interviews and plotting exercises are particularly useful at the pre-writing stage.
