Outlining and Plots... are you ready?

Hmm. Yeah I've always been one for chapter plotting as well. Congrats on the match. My plot is something thats seen a couple versions over about a seven year period, so it's pretty firm in my mind. Theres a couple kinks I hope to work out while writing or in the dreaded editing process which im sure will be one for the record books. Well...who else is a plotter out there?

I have to say... I'm probably the LEAST prepared person here, honestly. x] Good thing it's not NaNo yet! All I have is the base idea of a story and a few notes written down somewhere. I think mine would be a Teenage Fiction? I'm not really sure how else to explain it. lololol. Anyways. (: Good luck to EVERYONE! And I hope you all are more prepared than me. (:

Sorry, Maya.
I win for least prepared.
I don't even have a base idea to work with yet.
Good thing I have a few weeks!

Readier than I think I've ever been! I have a solid premise, a basic plot - and even an ending! Provided I get that far, which even if I hit the word goal I'm not sure I will. It's extremely open ended. I think artistically you could categorize me as 'surrealist' this year, but I had to slot it under Sci Fi. ;P
Already doing some outlining and character descriptions, even without names for most of them. My outline doesn't really break things down into chapters so much as events and plot elements (and reminders to myself not to leave out certain details from when I've been struck by moments of inspiration - that should help in the third week or so when my well tends to run totally dry).
Whee!

Well, good luck Diotima! x]
And haha, yes... good thing we do have a few weeks!
I'd sure be very unprepared if it weren't for that.

I have it about half way outlined, and most of the plot is figured out...

This is the story I thought of right before last NaNo ended, and I'm finally fleshing it out.

I had a great idea I'd been kicking around for years, and was plotting it all out, when I got a better idea about two days ago. Back to square one.

I’m excited about my story idea this year. All I’ve done so far is plug it into a story summary. It helps me get focused. Here are the questions I start with:

1. The basic plot situation in which the story is to play.
2. The name and identity of the main viewpoint character.
3. This character’s story goal.
4. The name of the primary opposition character.
5. What this “villain” wants. And how he opposes the main character.
(Brickham, "Scene & Structure," 1993)

Here’s where I am now:

International billionaire Brad Smith (name and identity) receives bad news about the inevitable collapse of the industrial world’s economies in five years (situation). Brad must xxxxxxxx (viewpoint character’s main goal) before he is sucked into the worldwide vortex of starvation, chaos, and slaughter. But can he xxxxxxx before Xxxxxxx (Brad’s primary opposition) xxxxxxxxx?

All I have so far is the Main Character, his Story Problem. I want to determine Brad's Story Goal, who the Primary Opposition is, and what he/she wants before November. Also, this year I want to know the MC’s Story Worthy Problem (Edgerton, “Hooked,” 2007) before I start the first draft. I don’t want to repeat my 2006 novel experience and not discover the MC’s SWP until the 3rd draft. It took three more drafts (and probably an extra year!) to retrofit the SWP into the narrative. (By the way, I recently “finished” my 2006 Nanowrimo novel, “UFR.” 85,000 words. I’m currently looking for a publisher.)

For the structure-rebels, I’d like to suggest watching the movie, "Adaptation." In fact, everyone should watch this before Nov. 1. You'll see yourself on Nov. 28. Note: For a little fun, pause the movie and zoom in on Robert McKee’s, “Ten Commandments,” and you too can become a player in the movie (tee-hee).

Also, a little thing that helps me get started? At the beginning, I write a “book report” about my story, as though I’ve read it already. Then in the Nanowrimo spirit, I plow full speed ahead turning the story summary into a brief beginning, middle, and end, and then write a long, detailed constantly expanding chapter-by-chapter descriptions of the story during November. When ideas about dialogue and scenes come to mind, I include them on the spot raw. Over the month, I go back over it again and again expanding on it until it morphs into a story. It works for me because it like to have a roadmap to where I’m going. It reduces false starts and dead ends. It allows me to find the story before I’ve waste 50,000 words to the “wrong” story. And there is such a thing. My 2007 Nanowrimo novel is an example.

Anyway, just my two-cents (x 100 :>).

Oh, don't feel too alone. I'm kinda in the same predicament, lol. Good luck!

And Geary...your words are inspiring :) I think I might just try some of that!

Shann...

I used to be a type A personality, now I'm a type Zzzzz....

Yes! I do that too. Before even that, I do a back-of-the-jacket kind of thing sort of like what you posted. Mine so far is:

"A young narcoleptic lucid dreamer with a sleepwalking problem, during an 'episode', stumbles upon the gateway between her waking life and the dream world. Without knowing how or why, she is able to pass through, creating a loophole that certain forces have worked for aeons to prevent - and with good reason.
Other forces, of course, have been waiting just as long for a chance to cross over. Now, a plethora of figments ridiculous and vile are emerging, and the line between dream-nonsense and reality as we know it is becoming difficult to distinguish.

It is the year 2012. The eve of the end is nigh. Her destiny is clear: to close the loop and restore the world for its sentient inhabitants...
Or is it?"

I don't have names for anyone yet aside from -one- side character, who spends 90% of the novel working on his NaNo novel. :P My side characters in general are pretty well fleshed out, as is my villain, but my main character... well, I need to do some work on her before I start, otherwise I'll end up despising her shallow ineptitude the way I did year before last. :P

( edit for some redundant wording >.>; )

Last night I decided to dump my first story idea. Wasn’t that excited about it anyway.

However! I dumped it because I got a better idea, something I can really go all-out Rambo nanowrimo on.

Last spring I moved everything I'd had in storage for twelve years into a new space. Unpacking decades of old papers, I found a hypnotists report from 1980. I went to three session to help me stop biting my nails, a habit since childhood. It didn't help. I final stopped this year.

I remember the hypnotist’s final report caught me by surprise in 1980. It didn’t make sense and I didn’t believe it, so I dismissed it and forgot it. But then 28 years of life happened. Looking at it today, the hypnotist’s report is shockingly true. She’d found that when I was eight, an incident started a seed of guilt growing in me that finally became top-heavy a few years ago and rolled over on me. I realized last night this was a Story Worthy Problem right under my nose. I'm wondering now, how many more SWPs I have right under my nose. Bet we all do, and just can see them.

Anyway, I’m going to write two parallel stories, one about the SWP above (dramatized!) set in the past, and the other a darkly humorous story carrying the Story Problem set in the present about a man coming home to face down the dragons of his past.

Something like this: Approaching his senior years, Price has moved back to Olympia for one final grasp at the kind of happiness he had 30 years ago, before things spun out of control. Hiding a shameful secret, Price must go around to all his old community theater friends to collect the things of his past life, one filled with a lot of things he no longer wants but must deal with. I envision a humorous escalation of the ridiculousness of dealing with the stuff.

The story unfolds from the dramatization of their layered, interwoven relationships and conflicts. Price’s primary opposition character, Alice, hates Price (or so she says) and is furious about his return to Olympia. Her goal is to rally all the old friends against Price and drive him out of town. Her efforts—though serious—are as wacky as her motivations. (And hopefully the primary source of the dark humor.) Relationships with all Price’s friends will be represented by the stuff Price comes to collect from each friend. Guilt will be a theme bridging the stories. Hmm. Can’t wait to nanowrimo that out.

Also thinking that Price’s childhood story will be presented in scenes as the hypnotist takes him backward in time to the incident at the heart of his story worthy problem. The inciting incident of story will be Price finding the hypnotist’s report. All through the story he has flashbacks of being hypnotized. Hmm :>?. Flashbacks within flashbacks? Hmm...

Throughout both stories are portrait memories of Price's family, fresh from the Great Depression World War II, and Korea, now in conflict with the social revolution of the sixties. The subtext will be the Christian fundamentalist counter-revolution, dramatized in the evangelical grandmother, mother, daughter power struggle. Yep, no shit. Gonna write what I know. Grandma has a foot in her Quaker past. Granddaughter is in the vangard 70's Jesus-Jumper generation. Mom is caught in between.

For now I’m calling it The Year I Began Biting My Nails. My only hope is to be abducted by aliens and implanted with a darkly funny writing style before November :>/

I've had my idea for years, but I'm just now starting to do some real plotting. Last year, I ran out of story before I hit 50K, so I'm hoping that won't happen again.

"The year I began biting my nails." I like it. I don't think dark and funny will be too hard for you.

Does anyone else have this problem too? You’re away from the computer (for me it’s the john) and the most fantastic dialogue or scene starts racing through your head. But when you run back to put them on paper, it’s like, POOF, gone. You can't find the fantastic combination of words for what’s in your mind, now sailing into the fog. I hate that. I'm thinking of moving my writing desk into the bathroom. No shit. Some of you with kids might consider this option. (Although my kids never seemed need me until went into the bathroom. Why is that?) Have you ever peed your pants because you can't pull yourself away from the computer when the words are clicking out perfectly? There should be a nanowrimo diaper. In fact, I'll need one in a minute if I don't

I came up with a fantastic plot, intricate characters and a gripping twisted ending all the other night just as I was falling asleep. Of course I can't remember a bit of it now, so I feel your pain!

Haha. I get some really good ideas when I'm falling into sleep! I actually have remembered all of the ones so far, thank god! Like just the other night I plotted out a part (i think the ending) of a novel series I'm working on (not the one for NaNo, but another). I was too tired to get up and turn on a computer or find paper to write it down, so I just had to pray I'd remember it! And I did! Thaaank god! But I have done things like that before.. mostly when it comes to songs. I'm not much a song writer, but mostly only because I think of an amazing song at the WORST times! And they're only there for a moment! So I have to be quick and have something to write on and with! Most of the time.. I have nothing, too. I've basically given up on song writing.

Also, I agree. I often find myself doing something on the computer... and I'll be like "snap... i really need to take a piss..." but I want to finish whatever I am doing before I go. LOL. It's completely crazy. And then I'll start doing other things, or it'll take longer than planned, and I'm sitting there praying that I'll make it to the wash room in time. Ha ha. A lot of my friends and I do that. x] Silly us ~

I'm sort of afraid to share my plot and ideas for my novel. I'm highly afraid of someone stealing it, coz I think it's pretty good. It's still sketchy at the moment... but hopefully I'll have a better grasp on it by the time NaNo starts.

I tend to keep my Palm Centro on me and I've gotten so quick with the qwerty keyboard that I use its mini Word program to type up documents with ideas and thoughts in them. Going to copy them all over to reference in November :3

I use to worry about that too. But I believe now that no matter what the idea, only I can tell my story. Someone else might be so low to take the idea, but they'll write a completely different story. Anyway, we can't help but use other people's plots. According to some scholars, there at most only 37 plots, and the ancient Greeks used them all 2,000 years ago. We just keep telling the same stories in our own unique way. Well hopefully unique :>p

You make me want to go shopping. I want one!

I keep a 70 sheet, 1 subject, college rule spiral notebook at my elbow constantly. I’ve learned the hard way to write the idea down as soon as it comes to mind, especially if it’s 3 AM.

Even so, one night, as I sat down for dinner, an idea for the novel I was working on came to mind. I felt a rush of inspirational genius and said out loud, “That is a PROFOUND idea!” (I sometimes speak in capital letters.) And then I thought, “I should write that down now.” Pause. “Naw, it’s such a profoundly fantastic idea I won’t forget it.” :>/ Right. Never did remember it.

OOOhh Awful..I hope that never happens to me.

This is true.. but nonetheless, you can't blame me really, can you? I notice how cliché all my ideas and everyone elses are. They are all the same, just taken and twisted into new ideas. I wish I could think of something completely different and off the wall... but eh. x]

Maybe at the event I'll tell more! (: But only if you get it outta me. x] Haha.

Einstein supposedly wondered why he always got his best ideas when shaving. I used to think it was an urban myth that sprung up to explain why Einstein had such superb facial hair, but I've noticed I often get good ideas when shaving too. Maybe it's just the result of staring at yourself in the mirror for ten minutes. Hmm. Maybe I'll try that when I get stuck this year.

I will admit to having some epiphanies in the john, but the only thing I usually get to think when shaving is "I've done this a thousand times. It's easy. Let's see how quickly I can do it." *fwip... fwip... nick!* "OW. NEVERMIND."
Maybe I need to slow down my shaving for contemplation. :P

*laughs* I get some of my best ideas while at work. I'm a number cruncher, and sometimes I find that when I'm adding up long lists of numbers, it's easiest to let my mind wander just a little bit, so I'll ponder my way through plot holes or other ideas... and when I get them, I end up writing on sticky notes and placing them around my computer monitor.

My boss gave up asking what I was doing months ago.

There's a nice little forest of sticky notes to take home.

Satisfying. :3
I'm behind a computer for most of the day so if I have an idea, I throw it into a Google document. This has the added benefit of making me look like I work very hard (otherwise I'm typing into that phone, which makes me look like a possibly autistic 13 year old with a texting addiction).

Yes, cliché. I feel the pain. I hate the thought in my work being nothing more than a string of clichés. One website lists over 370 scifi clichés. That’s a lot of recycled originality.

What helps me is to keep in mind what Robert McKee wrote in “Story” about the difference between the archetypal story (original creativity) and the stereotypical story (a cliché is an overused stereotype) is that the archetypal story “unearths a universally human experience, then wraps itself inside a unique, culture-specific expression.” The stereotypical story does the reverse. “It confines itself to a narrow, culture-specific experience and dresses it in stale, nonspecific generalities.”

I suppose and example might be a story about a main character’s yearning for acceptance in his drug-filled suburban environment as opposed to a stereotype story about drug-filled suburban community slowing killing the main character.

So there. Oh so simple. :>D

This year I’m going to “follow the white rabbit,” (Matrix). I’m giving my main character his Story Problem at the beginning, then doing everything I possibly can to prevent him from achieving his Story Goal for one month and 49,998 words (the last two being THE END).

Warning! If necessary I WILL resort to flying monkeys, killer chickens, and, yes, alien ninjas riding unicorns (just to keep up the word count of course!)

In Les Edgerton’s book “Hooked,”(a must read, no kidding) he writes about the main character’s Story Worthy Problem, which appears to address the “universally human experience” issue:

“The Story Worthy Problem is what the story is really about. The Inciting Incident (a scene at the beginning of the story in which something happens to the protagonist that creates his “surface” or Story Problem) introduces the first indications of the Story Worthy Problem. This is where today’s stories begin. The Inciting Incident sets the stage for the Story Worthy Problem, which functions just beneath the surface of the story (subtext) on a more psychological level. It is the driving force behind the initial surface Story Problem as it’s ultimately what the protagonist must reconcile at the end of the story. The Inciting Incident introduces this problem by either bringing to the forefront a buried problem or creating a new one, thus beginning the gradual revealing process that will encompass the rest of the story as the protagonist’s—and the reader’s—understanding of the true nature of Story Worthy Problem deepens.”

My MC’s SWP: For the last 50 years Price has been unconsciously carrying around suppressed guilt about hating his sister for a condition she can’t help. The consequences of his unresolved issues have been a lifetime of emotional turmoil affecting all his relationships, ultimately leading to the BIG SECRET he tries to hide.

The “unique, culture-specific expression” of Price's story is inside my unique, culture-specific head. Everyone has a unique, culture-specific expression in their head. Unfortunately our originality gets suffused by all the stories from books and movies we have in our heads.

I'm among those who are ridiculously unprepared. I've got a couple character maps going, but that's about it.
It's gonna be crazy getting this done with my demanding Greener schedule and all *cough* but I'm determined to not let this one fail like last year's.

Also...feel free to add me as a buddy..I feel vaguely buddyless D:

The best advice I’ve read is this, give your main character a goal, then, for 50,000 words, do everything you can to prevent her/him from achieving it. When you draw a blank, bring out the fly monkeys and ninjas. Anything to keep up the word count. The point is completing a first draft. And all first drafts stink. I like what Chris Baty says in No Plot No Problem: “Lower the bar from ‘best seller’ to ‘would not make someone vomit’.”

There’s a fun little obscure comic movie out there called Haiku Tunnel. All the main character has to do is stuff a couple dozen envelopes and put them in the mail. The entire movie is series of increasingly ridiculous problems that prevent him from achieving his goal.

Woke at midnight to find another stupid story in my pajamas. How they get in my pajamas I’ll never know.

“Want a fountain pen?” She held up a tortoiseshell pen I recognized as my grandfather’s from the Great War.

“No,” I shivered nakedly. “Stupid story, I want my pjs back. I already have a story. Get out,” I snarled terminatorly.

She batted her adverbial phrases. “Not like me you don’t.” She reached around, brushing her faintly disguised clichés against my arm, and pulled up a possessive noun, sending obvious imagery of her self-obsessions flying to the top of the mirror. “Pleeze seeet,” her French Guiana accent full of irony, satire, metaphor, and unpleasant onomatopoeia.

I stepped back and crossed my arms. “And just how did you come to possess the Colonel’s pen?”