Planning before Writing a Novel

[crich70]

Has anyone else here tried using this book for helping to create a writing project? It looks good in theory anyway. A series of 10 questions that help to focus the structure of a writing project so that you have an easier time of the actual writing. Kobo It's $1.99 but a coupon does work with it.

[hoichi]

Originally Posted by crich70

Has anyone else here tried using this book for helping to create a writing project? It looks good in theory anyway. A series of 10 questions that help to focus the structure of a writing project so that you have an easier time of the actual writing. Kobo It's $1.99 but a coupon does work with it.

Hmm. Doesn't seem to be rated very high.

BTW, of the recipes available online I could recommend The Snowflake Method. (I didn't know someone made a program for it already, nor do I know if the program's any good. Anyway, a word processor or pen and paper would do just fine.)
I admit I never got around to use this method from start to finish, lazy bastard I am, but I did the first few steps and it seems like a sensible way to think proactively. And I think you can customize it to suit your needs and preferences, and even if you won't have time to plan out everything before November, you can at least start with the basics and see how far can you get. Beats reading a book in a way, too: more time for you to actually outline

Here's another tool I actually use pretty often, while we're at it: The Creative Twostep. As often as not it's actually a onestep, for questions often come naturally but interesting answers take some fantasizing.

[Dr. Drib]

Too many writers try to plan and get nowhere.

Just sit down and DO IT!!!!




In no time at all, you'll have your novel written - a masterpiece loved only by you and your family.

[BookCat]

If you've read lots of novels you'll already know how they work. Using too many how-to books is procrastination (done it!) and lack of confidence (got that one too). Once I have the basic idea, I just use some software called Papel which is a very visual type of mind mapping, I throw the basics of the characters, locations, events, into this THEN.....
I go into Word's OUTLINE VIEW (not the print view or normal) and throw down the absolute basics of the plot arc. I then go back, go to level two and put in more details of each element. Then I move to level three. I could do this all at once or one part at a time. You can even drag and drop the bits around (which takes any 'children' with it).

Not many people know how to use this aspect of Word, I wouldn't know if it wasn't for a Dummies book I bought for my version of Word (2002). The function is still available in more modern versions of Word.

After you've planned all this, you can even put the body text into the appropriate places. I often write the actual text in Write or Die, but you could use ZenWriter etc, then copy and paste this as 'body text' into the Word Outline. Then if you decide you want a chapter to be somewhere else, just drag and drop it, all the levels beneath this will go with it, including the body text.

[crich70]

word wars also help during NaNo I've found. Meeting an external challenge is always a good way to add on to the word count.

[Graham]

I used Janice Hardy's new book when I was planning a novel earlier this year. It just happened to come out as I was getting started. I found it extremely useful.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/099...ictiouniver-20

I may have ended up with too much material - my planning ran to over 30,000 words - but it took me right to the heart of the novel, and moved the original idea on considerably in the process.

Graham

[Graham]

Originally Posted by hoichi

BTW, of the recipes available online I could recommend The Snowflake Method. (I didn't know someone made a program for it already, nor do I know if the program's any good. Anyway, a word processor or pen and paper would do just fine.)

I bought the program a couple of years ago before NaNo 2012, and used it to outline the novel first draft that I wrote then. You're right that you don't need the program to used the Snowflake Method, but it works well and perhaps provides some motivation.

However, I transferred the outline out of the program and into Scrivener for the final planning and actual writing of the novel.

Graham

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Graham

I bought the program a couple of years ago before NaNo 2012, and used it to outline the novel first draft that I wrote then. You're right that you don't need the program to used the Snowflake Method, but it works well and perhaps provides some motivation.

However, I transferred the outline out of the program and into Scrivener for the final planning and actual writing of the novel.

Graham

Interesting. Thanks for the interesting link. Each person is different in what works for them but each approach is interesting in and of itself I think.

[hoichi]

Originally Posted by Graham

However, I transferred the outline out of the program and into Scrivener for the final planning and actual writing of the novel.

Was the process automated? Or did you have to copy/paste or retype everything in Scrivener?

Either way, I suppose it's too late for me to try and use any new tools this year. Like I said, I'm not even using Scrivener for the first draft. I still have almost two weeks for figuring out my plot (I got the universe and some characters but no villain and no intrigue), yet I think I'm going to have to think on my feet this November, and I'm not comfortable enough with Scrivener for that.

BTW, yesterday I've written a thousand words just talking to myself about the plot, characters etc. That might not count as a warm up, because thinking aloud is not the same as writing fiction, but it's better than nothing, I guess. And I do need to think about my plot.

[Graham]

Originally Posted by hoichi

Was the process automated? Or did you have to copy/paste or retype everything in Scrivener?

I can't remember, I'm afraid, and I'm away from my Windows machine for the next week. I think I was able to export it from the Snowflake program, but I can't remember if I was able to import it into Scrivener directly. I don't think it took very long to copy across, though, but it was definitely a one way operation.

Copying each scene by hand isn't as bad as it sounds, though, because you work on it as you go. There are additional things to set in Scrivener which are helpful. I flagged each scene as Draft at that stage, and added a POV character, using different colours for each character. That made it very easy to follow my progress during NaNo, and also to see the ebb and flow between POV characters.

Graham

[hoichi]

Originally Posted by Graham

Copying each scene by hand isn't as bad as it sounds, though, because you work on it as you go. There are additional things to set in Scrivener which are helpful. I flagged each scene as Draft at that stage, and added a POV character, using different colours for each character. That made it very easy to follow my progress during NaNo, and also to see the ebb and flow between POV characters.

Yeah, I know about the benefits of manual labor
And I love how Scrivener is flexible and allows you to get a bird's eye view of anything that's important to you.
For this year's novel I'll probably use first-person narration though. Hmm. I've yet to think about it properly.

[crich70]

If you go here: Click you can find a bunch of free to use templates for Scrivener, and if you go to its main forum at literature and latte and look round the "zen of scrivener" forum you can find even more templates that people have created for use in scrivener.

[BookCat]

Here's a link to the elusive free software, Papel. I recommend downloading the Themes too. I use it for planning only, but it can be used for the actual writing.

http://papel.teiru.net/papel/

[crich70]

There is also Storybook which has been around for a while as well.Storybook

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by BookCat

Here's a link to the elusive free software, Papel. I recommend downloading the Themes too. I use it for planning only, but it can be used for the actual writing.

http://papel.teiru.net/papel/

Why are you calling it 'elusive' if it's freely available all over the internet?