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How to Write a Book: Plotting

First, you may ask, why not just let the story flow? It'll naturally have a beginning, middle, and end. Isn't anything else contrived? To that I ask:

Q: Are you a unicorn who has stories flow out of your fingertips in the same sequence that they'll ultimately land in print?

A: If you're not that unicorn, you will need a bit of contrivance to craft the plot of your story.

There are so many different ways to plot a book, and I've tried them all. But ultimately I realized I was trying for a perfectly balanced experience... like Carl Gottleib's script for Jaws. If you've ever read The Jaws Log you'll know Carl was contriving so hard during the 159 days he was "co-writing" Jaws he probably looked like an interpretive dancer there on Martha's Vineyard while crafting the perfect 3 Act experience. And what an experience! 

Act One: Grizzly murders with the town in peril

Act Two: Heroes set out only to find they need a bigger boat

Act Three: Struggle to the death with nail-biting surprise victory!

Trying to channel Mr. Gottleib, I choose a page count based on popular books in my genre. Then I divide that page count into 3rds. That is how many pages I have for each act. I take poster board and divide it into 3rds. Next, I brainstorm the end of each act and write it in black at the bottom of each 3rd. Next, I parce out scenes that will get me to those cliffhangers in the smoothest manner. Then I use colored pencils to sketch out each character's path (each character is a color) through each act so I know who is doing what. Finally with that as my road map, I begin to write. I know the page count of my sections and can easily see how many pages per scene, etc. And the whole process began with the focus on PLOTTING.

What can I say? I'm a visual person. Give it a try!



-- Anna Erikssön Bendewald 

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