Plot This: Brainstorming

There are a million ways on the web, in writing books, writing professors and the like telling you how to brainstorm. How to plot. How to plan. How to outline. A lot of How to's out there. But I personally don't think there's just *one* way to outline, brainstorm, plot, or write a novel. Writing is a deeply personal thing and like most things in art, each person provides a unique take on it. There is no right or wrong way.

In case you're not familiar, brainstorming is a pre-writing step. A necessary step, in my opinion, for story craft and writing. Some people will say it's a braindump or thought dump. But it's so much more.  Brainstorming is the first steps to a story. It's more than just getting snippets and ideas out on to a page. It's creative thinking meddled with problem-solving to create a completely you story.

I can hear all my pantsers in the crowd shouting their protests, but hear me out. Even if you like to write on the fly, figuring it out as you go you still probably brainstorm beforehand a little beforehand. Do some character things? Sketches? Questionaries? Yeah, that's brainstorming, even if it's just a bit.

But brainstorming, at least how I think of it, comes in two parts. The thought vomit and the actual problem-solving. This is how I've come to think of brainstorming. it's not how someone else might but nonetheless could help

So how can you brainstorm?

Well, I'd like to say there's a tried and true method. But there's not. Somethings will work for you. Others won't. And that's totally okay. it's also okay to experiment with different methods or mash a few together.  

I like to break brainstorming into two parts: thought vomit & problem-solving. But any of these methods can be used s either topic.

1) A stream of Consciousness/Freewrite Method

You just go for it. you type whatever you can think of relating to your story in a notebook or a google doc or word doc. You go to town. typing furiously to get it all out of your head. It can include dialogue, scenes, character descriptions, settings, bits and pieces of anything really. This is messy, it's jumbled it's chaotic.  And that's totally okay. it's supposed to be.

Pros: You get a lot of stuff out there You can get some amazing ideas and snippets to incorporate Easiest for Pantsers Cons Time-consuming. You can get sucked into this pretty fast. Easy fix set a timer. ( 10 fifteen minutes) It's not organized so you have to sort things and organizes it

2. Mind Maps

So those silly little charts you learned in Language Arts as a child come in handy.  So these are where you write one big idea in the center and branch out smaller ideas here. This works best if you're doing it analog and not on a computer but I'm sure somewhere there's a program.  There are a few ways to do. Write on notecards, post-it notes, or just a piece of paper and pen. ( I've even tried doing it where I have an image that inspires the story and a bunch of other details stuck around it so it’s liberating to just have whatever you want). You also need a wall, poster board, back of a clean door anything flat where you won't disrupt it. You write everything you think of on said thing of your choice, pop it on to a surface and then connect the ideas or make clusters. Mapping it out.

here's an example of a mind map 

Pros: Visual so great for people who need to see things physically Modable. If you use post-it notes or painters tape it you can rearrange and remix things You can add and remove as you like; leave and come back to it as ideas hit you

Cons Takes space Time, this takes time a lot of it. ( I set a timer for about 1.5 hours) Motion. This is very, up and down and up and down for me. As I write, stand post and etc. So if that's something you want to avoid, this might not be the best thing for you Things can get disrupted or lost. If you do this on a bed, or wall, where there are lots of traffic things, can fall off, move around, shift. It's not fun.

3. The 5 Points method.

This works best with questions. So how is something suppose to work? What does the character want? What crisis do they need to overcome? What is the conflict for this given scene? Etc. Etc.  This is one of my favorite methods because it doesn't feel overbearing but it's also super quick to get some results. So all you do is: have a question. label 1-5 on a piece of paper or word doc. Answer the question with five different answers. The first few answers might be dumb or not so good. so keep going. I usually hit between 5-8 answers before I get something workable and good. That's it. Simple enough.

Don’t be scared to get silly answers.

It might look something like

“HOW CAN CONFLICT ALPHA MEAN MORE TO MR.X?”       1. The conflict unleashes dinsaurse and X has a spot for them and must now find a reason to solve problem + keep them safe       2.  He loses control for the first time in his life       3  the consequences of the conflict have him re-evaluate his life choices       4. he’s forced to pick between  need (internal) and want (external)       5. His hopes and dreams ride on this turning out okay

Pros: Can be done in a short amount of time Allows you to be less constricted by  perfectionism Gives you wiggle room fires off the creative part of your brain as well as singles to the logical part organized

Cons Can be easy to lose track of time ( timer is helpful here as well) Can be hard to think of good questions or question phrases Can get a little disorganized if you don't keep it neat

4. Starburst Method/Cubing Method

This method is another visual one. This method has you look at a certain thing and ask the 6 basic questions ( who, what, when where, why, and how) Frist find a topic. Example: Fae Culture. Then begin to generate questions about this topic. Who in charge? Who knows about it? What is the class system like? What does this topic make you think of? Where can you find more information? Where does it originate? Why does x event happen? How does x work? etc, etc.  Most people put this into a 6-pointed star ( but I find those super hard to draw so I often just make a modified mind map). Once you've got these down, go ahead and answer them

Pros: Good for world building Gets the basics done Visual Aid

Cons Might get stuck on questions/coming up with questions might not solve all plot holes

5. Snowflake Method

This method is really popular with some people, I am not one of them.  Crafted by Randy Ingermanson [ you can read more on this method and a step by step how to here ], the Snowflake method works small and builds large.  Starts with a sentence then moves into a paragraph, a page. Until you have a larger picture at hand.  This method is great if you don't want to spend like 900 hours on brainstorming or outlining at all.

Pros Can be relatively fast Gets macro and micro Great for Pansters Helps if you're struggling/typing aimlessly Timeline/Deadline compatible.

Cons A bit involved Uses a lot of paper ( or pages) 10 steps is a lot but can be worth it for people

Now, these are just a handful of methods but there’s plenty of other ways to go around brainstorm. Some of these work for me ( 5 points, mind mapping, scream of consciousness) Others not so much. Experiment, play around. Mesh two together. Dissect parts of them and create franken-brainstorm method uniquely you. If you don't brainstorm, then I challenge you to try some of these methods out. Who knows maybe you'll find that even as a pantser, your writing goes a bit more smoothly.

As always if there's something in this post you want more information about, more details about let me know!! I'm happy to help. I hope this inspires you to try something new or maybe it'll help you unstick that story.

Happy writing & creating! XO Morgan

Plot This: Story Shapes

So in my last post, I talked about a few plot structures to diagram a novel. To give it that bone structure all us girls would kill to have. Now I want to address story shape. No, I don't mean genre, not really, I mean story. I mean the basic "x many stories" that scholars like my Creative Writing Profs like to quote a bunch of times but never explain past a pretty visual.

In general, there’s a lot of argument on how many story “types” there are. Some say seven ( all my workshop profs did), some say 10, 20 even 36.  So what's the right number? Yeah, no one knows a good solid answer, some research points to six ( Universtiy of Vermont Labs, you can read their findings here ) other disagree and say more. I've always been a simple kind of gal, so I tend to stick with the seven/six but I can understand and appreciate the need for more diversity and complexity for different things.

Now there are countless diagrams, picograms, snazzy graphics about these basic story shapes, and I'll link some [ here and here,] that I often use but I want more overarching things at my disposal when I write. 

Like the plot structures, I like to dabble and experiment with story shapes. So this one is for anyone who wants to know about their story shape, and it should have one. Anyone who wants to know about the emotional trajectory of their piece. Anyone who wants to understand their story to challenge it a bit more. Or anyone like me who finds this kinda of stuff really fascinating.

1 ) The Six Core Story Shapes ( based on Kurt Vonnegut's rejected thesis)

1. Rags to Riches  ( aka Boy Meets Girl) follows a rise of happiness.  

2.  Man-in-A-hole  follows fall - rise

3. Icarus ( aka Old Testament) follow rise- fall 

4. Tragedy (aka Riches-to-rags ) follows a fall in happiness. 

5. Cinderella ( aka New Testament) follows a rise, fall, rise.  

6. Oedipus follows fall, rise, fall.  

7. Creation Story ( this was not included in the study because it only covered Western Narrative. Creation Story Shape is not common in Western Lit but can be found in cultures across the board.) follow a rise to happiness

8. Which Way is up? ( this was also not included in the study. this narrative shape is a story that includes a lot of ambiguity that keeps readers from deciphering if developments are good or bad. Think Hamlet)

There are a lot of parallels between certain shapes ( Cinderella mirrors Oedipus etc). This is a great starting point and the link to analysis is kinda fun to play with.   These also sort of help you define the genre by the emotional slope and valleys then by setting. That alone can give you a bit more insight into certain story aspects.  These six and the two from Vonnegut's shape theory could offer more insight into your story which a plot structure ( like the Plot Embryo) won't.  You can watch Vonnegut's discussing these here in a less than five-minute video which is great.

2) The Seven Basic Plot by Christopher Booker

1. Rags to riches 

2. Overcoming the Monster

3. The Quest

4.  Voyage and Return

5.  Comedy

6. Tragedy

7.  Rebirth.

It's important to note that all the "story shapes" will have some overlap whether you say there's three or seven or thirty-six.  And that's plain here.  These bad boys are the ones everyone has seen a million and ten times. And they're a great place to start when understanding the story you have before you. These story shapes are also used in marketing strategies for companies so they can be pretty useful across the board.

3. Overview and Wrap Up

 Even at a glance, you can tell that they all have something in common. One is more simplistic than the other and adheres better to post-modern and modern works.  Even if I were to dissect the other 10, 20 or so story shapes, that would be clear.

I like to boil things into their simplest form, that's why I only went over the seven. I like things where I can see the bones of a project without over complicating it. The Seven is what I use constantly when plotting and structuring. But  I encourage you to take a look at Blake Snyder ( 10 Plots ), Ronald Tobias (20 Plots) and Georges Polti  (36) if you're curious and see if those aren’t more helpful for you.

It's this type of thing that you don't see a lot when talking about story craft and structure. And yet, this is another great tool for you to have at your disposal. It helps with so many things if you’re struggling. It’s also really good knowledge about story craft in general. 

So why do you even care? I'm so glad you asked you smart cookie you.

Uses:

Not so good for

I hope this helps anyone out there, and as always if you want something more detailed or a compare and contrast sorta thing, feel free to ask! I love to talk about this stuff and help any way I can!!

Happy writing/Creating XO Morgan