The Plotting Weekend…

 

Okay, time to get this mess organized! The goal this weekend: to work up the entire series in this ‘universe’ so that I could be sure of what details needed to be in the first book that I plan on writing in November for NaNo. THEN I could finish the plotting outline for this first book.

 

As I worked Friday night I realized several problems as I was typing my week’s worth of sticky-notes and odd notes on scraps of paper:

 

First big problem: I had no idea how long this series needed to be. All I knew was that it needed to be more than 2 books. This is a serious problem as I have no clue when certain plot points need to be introduced.

 

Second big problem: As there are several mysteries running through the storyline, I needed a way to keep track of each and make sure each are wrapped up appropriately by the end.

 

Third big problem: I knew that if I didn’t solve all this now, I risked making some huge mistakes in following books, knowing that many later plot points inspire earlier ones as foreshadowing and set-up.

 

It looks like I need a template to help organize this mess into something cohesive. Friday night I went to bed thinking about all this and making notes on what this mysterious template needed to include.

 

 

No alarm, this is my day off! Fortunately, I really didn’t sleep in too badly. J The moment I was awake, I jumped up and immediately started research. First off: the template…

 

….and I quickly came to the conclusion that there are very few templates out there in books or on the ‘net that are designed to be used for planning series!

 

By Saturday night I found one: a template posted at Forward Motion by Sheila. She has some lovely templates, but as any writer knows, every writer works differently. Not long after I started using it, it quickly became apparent that it wasn’t working for me. The details were spread out in a way that was driving me nuts, and too many times I found myself putting the same info, only with a slight deviation, in answer to too many of the questions. It also wasn’t helping me plan out where the subplots and details to the mysteries needed to go in a way that I could see very quickly visually. That last part is very important as I’m a very visual person.

 

 

Saturday night: After starting to fill out Sheila’s template I’m guessing the series needs to be about 6 books. Right before I slip into sleep, I’m thinking maybe 2 books need to be combined and it will turn into a 5 book series.

 

Sunday Morning:

 

Time to get up and solve this template problem! Bringing out my first ideas for a template and then using Sheila’s template to be inspired with, I started putting together a new template.

 

By late Sunday morning it was a success! Sunday afternoon and evening all the little notes I had were transferred into the new template, and guess what?

 

The silly thing wanted to be a 7 book series!

 

Personally I think it just wants the extra attention.

 

P.S. Thanks to everyone in the Forward Motion chat room who had advice on all this!