The Materialist's Guide To: Post-Concept, Pre-Story

1) SPAGHETTI METHOD: throw everything onto the wall until something sticks.

During the brainstorming period, I tend to get most of my inspiration from mediocre movies, books, and television plots. The really great stuff just gets me down on myself, but the popcorn stories are great as jumping off points. Seeing someone else's mistakes or missed opportunities gets my creativity pumping.

Don't worry, by the time the idea or plot point is filtered through your themes, your concept, and your brain, it's not anything like the material that inspired it. The idea is to find what inspires you, and hang around lots of that stuff, throwing bits and pieces onto your mental dartboard until a bunch of cool stuff sticks.

2) CHARTS AND GRAPHS:

Once I've got a bunch of ideas for my characters, I divide up my outline into 1. Acts (I always use 5) and 2. Storylines (I usually have A-D, but with a manuscript like the one I'm working on now, a small E storyline could fill things in nicely.

With this manuscript, I'm aiming for 85K words. While each *act* should come out to roughly 17K words, each *storyline* isn't equal. The A-storyline should be much more important, and take up much more space than the E-storyline, for instance. For my current manuscript, the A-storyline gets about 27K, the B-storyline 22, the C-storyline 17, the D-storyline 13, and the E-storyline 7. That's a *rough* estimate.

I then make up an act-by-act, story-by-chart. The acts are the Y-axis, the storylines the X-axis, so that the letters at the top correspond to storylines, the numbers down the side to acts. Under each storyline/beside each act, I filled in the number of words (by thousand) per act/storyline. Some of the acts will have 5K for the A-story, some 6K. Some of the acts will have 4K for the B-story, some 5K, etc.

In this manuscript, the D-story is a foil for the A-story, and the C-story for the B-story. Therefore, in the acts where I thought the emphsis should be on the A story, I gave A 1K "extra" and D 1K "fewer" words. Again, this is *rough*-- more so I can keep my thread and remember where to put emphasis/what's important. If I plot correctly, however, the final word-counts *should* line up naturally.

3) WORKSHEETS:

So, now I know a bunch of random stuff I want to happen, and I know where my emphasis should be-- so now what? My A-story and my B-story are *by far* the most important: the other stories are countermelodies on the same theme. So, now I've got to think: what dilemma does my main character face in the A-story? In the B-story? The dilemmas are *thematically* linked, but are different in terms of plot devices, characters, etc. In my manuscript, for instance, my A-story is an action/political scheme, and my B-story is romantic... BUT, they are both about how to get what you want without subjecting others.

*Make sure that the dilemmas are *real.* They should be *unsolvable.* Otherwise 1. the story is boring to read 2. it has no heart 3. why are you bothering to write it anyway? Just to be pedantic?

In this manuscript's case, the A- and D-stories play with the same dilemma, and same with the B- and C-stories.

By now, I'm usually forming a narration in my head, because that's what I do. But if the spaghetti concepts aren't falling into place by now, you can also make a "Beginning, Middle, End" chart. Once you know the beginning and end for each storyline, a powerful middle shouldn't be too hard-- just think "what would make the end impossible to get to, based on this beginning?"

Once you have the beginning, middle, and end, think of a general bridge to get from one to another. These are short notes-- remember, this is for *you,* and you don't need to know every sign and stoplight right now-- you just need to know which road to take.

4) BACKBONE:

My first outline looks like this:

A-story
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

B-story
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

etc.

When I've filled out the *general, one-phrase* event for each storyline by act, I plug in the word-counts from my chart. Then I think things like: I wanted to emphasize the A-story in Act 3, because I want that story to hit hard there. But is my A-story, Act 3 plot-point strong enough for that?

This sounds insane, but it will usually work out-- especially if you've been trained to think in Act structure. Naturally, you'll have found a scary horrible plot-point for the A-story at the end of Act 3, and a resolution question for Act 5. You're so used to stories, you probably form narrations this way anyway.

BUT, the good thing about this method is it exposes weak plot points, and places where you might have let the tension go slack. For instance, it turned out my B-story, Act 4 was incredibly lame. Buried with the other plot points, it didn't look so bad, but when I saw I'd have to play with it for four thousand words I realized I needed to do some thinking.

With all those great speghetti concepts to shop from, the raw materials are probably good; I find that what usually happens here is that plot points need to be flipped, rather than abandoned or created.

SO: Now you've got a sketch of the entire book. You've transformed the theme into a (plot-)symphony, and know you've got:

1. a backbone strong enough for a novel-length manuscript (something I, a short writer, have trouble doing); and

2. great pacing.

Note: this is only the macro plotting-- the micro stuff is just as tough, and just as important... but it can wait until tomorrow :). Also, this is all based on the idea that you already know you're characters as well as you need to. Meaning: you know their strengths and weaknesses, and what journey they'll go on over the course of the story. For me, figuring that out goes with figuring out the theme, because characters usually come to me first. BUT, it's necessary to have specific "people" you're working with while plotting, in order to keep it cohesive.