Plotstorm--Preparing for a Writing Spree PLUS DOUBLE DRAWING!

For this post, I thought I'd do something different and fun. And since it's Christmas, I'd like to offer those of you who comment on this post a chance to win one of two prizes: 2 thirty minute brainstorming/plotstorming sessions with me. You can choose between 1.) helping me Plotstorm my next book (might appeal to you readers-only) or 2.) me helping you Plotstorm/brainstorm your book. If you'd like to be entered in a drawing for one of the above chances, add a comment to this post, letting us know which prize you'd like a chance to win, as well as leave us a valid e-mail address should your name be drawn. Deadline for entry is Friday, Dec 19 at midnight.

Disclaimer Note: my input DOES NOT guarantee you will be published. This is just a chance to brainstorm with a published author who loves to help others and who works with editors on a regular basis.

Now...on to the guts of this post:

I tend to write a rough draft in under a week. I am an instinct writer. I think that comes from being an avid reader of the genre in which I write. For the most part, I am a panster. However, writing a book as fast as I do requires some pre-work. I call it plotstorming.

Everyone has different methods. I am always changing (and hopefully improving!) mine. This method won't work for everyone. But for my post today, I thought I'd share a list of things I HAVE TO KNOW before rushing off into my writing spree. It is a fill-in-the-blank list.

The ***KNOW MY CHARACTERS*** part is more complex. I always know more about my characters than my plot when I first start out. Getting to know my characters and doing my story research or research on the character's career are the two most time-consuming things I do when writing. On another day, I will share my character chart with you. But for now, just know that the ***KNOW MY CHARACTER*** is a fill-in-the-blank list all on its own that is way too long to list here. But in that chart, I'd know (about the hero and heroine) things like:

Character Career___________
One-word adjective_________
Physical Description___________
Flaw____________
Quirk___________
Age_____________
Height__________
Build___________
Hair style/color________
etc, etc, etc and a gazillion other things.
This character chart is literally PAGES long.

Also, the prepwork/plotstorm involves making things easy on my family prior to my writing spree. Which means cooking a week's worth of meals and freezing them to make life easy for my family during my Weeklong Rough Draft Writing Spree. I clean my house top to bottom (because I can't concentrate well with clutter around me...sorry...it's the OCD in me. LOL!) And I plan exclusive activities with members of my family days prior to and following my spree so they don't feel neglected and are able to show more grace during the week I am unavailable. I sometimes leave my house to write, but sometimes I retreat to my room or office or otherwise quiet place. I also make sure they have an emergency number for me. I also try to clear out all my Inboxes and take care of any committments so I don't have to stop and take care of another project. Once I start writing, it's best to just blow through it, otherwise I tend to write scenes out of order which is a nightmare later.

For this blog post, I'm sharing my list of things OTHER than character specs.

I write action-romance but I imagine you could adapt this list to any genre/sub-genre.

I hope you can take something of value from it:

Cheryl's Plotstorm List

The Meet Cute: How will heroine/hero meet?
The Draw and Push: (What plot element will keep shoving them together? What story element or secondary character will keep them in contact throughout the book? Also, what (conflict and conflicting goals) will continually be prying them apart.)

Hero and Heroine's Story Goals
Hero and Heroine's Motivation
Hero and Heroine's Conflict: External, Internal, Spiritual, Relational

Hero and Heroine's careers

Story setting (I always know where the story takes place but not necessarily the season of year)

Inciting Incident (the chaos, disaster, crux, dilemma, catastrophe or change that opens/starts/catalyzes the story. This ends up being scene 1/opening hook.)

Relationship Reticence-hero
Relationship Reticence-heroine

1st Major Disaster
2nd Major Disaster
3rd Major Disaster aka Black Moment

Important Ancillary I use main characters' interactions with one or two important secondary characters to help characterize and sympathise them to readers. "Important Ancillary" is the character (other than hero and heroine) who is most central/important to the plot.

Basic Premise: (a one-sentence summary or few paragraph blurb of the basic story idea.)

Scene Index Skeleton: (not a chapter chart. These are one-liner plot points describing what goes into each scene. This is never exhaustive when I start out and my conflict and tension always gains momentum as I write)

The Resolution: (In a romance, I always know the hero and heroine will get together in the end. I like to know before starting out which one of them is most resistant to the relationship and why. I also like to know the what, where, when and why of the resistant one to giving in and realizing they can't live without the other person.)

Most of my story time lines span about a 6 month time. Since I know that, I don't have that on the chart. But if your story time lines vary, you may find it useful to add. So I'll put a lean Plotstorm list below.

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Cheryl's Short Plotstorm List:

***KNOW MY CHARACTERS***
The Meet Cute
The Draw and Push or Keep Cute
Hero and Heroine's Story Goals
Hero and Heroine's Motivation
Hero and Heroine's Conflict: External, Internal, Spiritual, Relational
Hero and Heroine's careers
Story setting
Inciting Incident
Relationship Reticence-hero
Relationship Reticence-heroine
1st Major Disaster
2nd Major Disaster
3rd Major Disaster aka Black Moment
Important Ancillary
Basic Premise
Scene Index Skeleton
The Resolution
Story Timeline
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If I've left something out, I'm sure it will come to me. Also, I wanted to mention on the Scene Index, I don't write down EVERY scene in the book. Just major milestone ones, such as the first kiss scene, and the scene that establishes attraction, disasters, etc. I will also give a Scene Index Example on another post another day.

I know the list probably doesn't seem like a lot. But as I said, I start out pretty minimal because I'm more of an instinct writer, which means I don't set out to plan themes, intricate structure and all that but somehow, in the end my books have that stuff in there.

For this reason I HIGHLY recommend that you avidly read current releases from any house, line and genre you are targeting.

Hope you find something useful. If you don't understand any of the elements (after all, I tend to use my own terminology...LOLOLOL!) please feel free to ask.

What kind of prep work, if any, do you do when you write?

Merry Christmas everyone! And don't forget to leave a comment, letting me know if you're interested in any of the above two prizes. Be sure to leave a valid e-mail address. Might wanna put spaces or brackets around the @ symbol so Net spiders don't get ya.

Here's a practical example from Ready-Made Family, my third book, which releases from Steeple Hill in April, 2009. If you want to see the finished product, the book is available for Pre-order now on Christianbook.com here.

I will also use this book to example the Scene Index and Character Charts I mentioned before in two of my future Seeker posts.


---***KNOW MY CHARACTERS***

---The Meet Cute: H/h meet in a parking lot when heroine's daughter approaches Ben to say her mommy needs help. (Heroine is incapacitated from an electrolyte imbalance.)

---The Draw and Push or Keep Cute: Heroine, passing through town with her daughter, gets stranded in the town of Refuge. She passed out leaving a pharmacy lot and her car crashed into a light pole. Heroine isn't released from hospital until her health is restored. Garage has to order car parts and then heroine loses the job she's headed to. Hero suggests she stay in Refuge to find a job, claiming Refuge lives up to its name. She stays, but is resistant to him because she's not sure about his motives. Hero promises to help her find a job and provides rides to interviews, etc.

Hero and Heroine's Story Goals: Heroine needs to find a job before summer's end. Hero's goal is two-fold. He needs to prepare his Mosaic Down Syndrome brother to come live with him for a year and he also wants to help the down-on-her-luck heroine.

---Hero and Heroine's Motivation: Single mom heroine needs to provide for her daughter because her parents have her nearly convinced she can't. She fears men's motives because her daughter's father abandoned her after coercing her to sleep with him in high school, which led to her pregnancy. The church where she's from shunned her and so now she shuns church. Hero's motivation is that he is ashamed of the fact that he was ashamed of his brother growing up. Now he wants to rebuild his brother's trust so Hutton can come live with him while their parents go on a year-long world travel they've always dreamed of. Ben's Asian descent gives him a strong sense of honoring his elders. He wants to help heroine out of a sense of compassion and obedience, feeling like she was put in his path for a reason.

---Hero and Heroine's Conflict: External, Internal, Spiritual, Relational: Hero's external conflict is he continually gets called away on a mission or problems with Hutton. And the heroine's housing plans fall through. So his two goals of helping his bro and heroine clash against one another. Also he's trying to find his brother ajob. Heroine is looking for a job in same town so H/h goals clash. Heroine internal conflict is she doesn't believe people help one another without agenda. She doesn't trust Ben is helping her for no reason so she's reticent, yet needs his help. Relational conflict: Heroine was duped by her daughter's father and her father is critical of her, leading her to constantly question Ben's integrity. Spiritual conflict: Heroine thinks that since her old church shunned her for her mistake, then God must feel the same way. Hero is a new Christian but strong in his faith and determines to show her the truth about how God sees her.

---Hero and Heroine's careers: Heroine has high school diploma only. Forwent college because her funds went toward hospital bills for a preterm pregnancy. Being a single mom, she couldn't afford college but taught herself secretarial skills she hopes to utilize. Hero is a US Air Force Pararescue Jumper and church worship leader

---Story setting: Fictional Refuge in Southern Illinois

---Inciting Incident: Heroine passes out while driving in a parking lot. Her daughter runs for help, approaches Ben in the same parking lot. He rushes over to help.

---Relationship Reticence-hero: he needs to focus on re gaining his brother's trust rather than on romancing a girl.
Relationship Reticence-heroine: Heroine is most resistant to this relationship and relationships in general. She was decieved majorly by a guy with ill motives. Trust issues from that.

---1st Major Disaster: (after inciting incident) Hero contacts heroine's parents thinking to help. But they aren't getting along w the heroine at present. He had also let DCFS know there was an unattended child w incapacitated driver. This put heroine's plans and reputation in jeapardy. Heroine loses job and housing opportunity that she was headed to in Missouri. Stranded in Illinois now.

---2nd Major Disaster: Hero discovers heroine's dad is prejudiced against Asians and interracial/cross-cultural relationships. Heroine wants her relationship w her dad restored but now realizes she might have to choose between a relationship with Ben and one with her father. There is also a job clash. Heroine gives up her job to Ben's brother, putting her in a potential position to have to move out of Refuge to find a job.

---3rd & 4th Major Disaster aka Black Moment: hurricane hits heroine's parents home. Hero goes to help and gives his word to help. As Ben is on the roof helping while heroine's dad is yelling obscenities at him, Ben gets word from his team mates that his father has passed away. He needs to be with his mother and brother but vowed to finish the roof to earn heroine's dad's respect and complete this act of kindness even in the face of ugly prejudice.

---Important Ancillary: Hutton, Ben's Down Syndrome brother, and Reece, heroine's daughter.

---Basic Premise: Romanace. Cross-cultural/interracial. Hero determines to help a struggling single mother and ends up falling for her. But she has major trust issues and needs to know she can take care of her daughter on her own.

---Scene Index Skeleton: no room for this here. Will share it another post. But is a series of one-sentence summaries per scene. I normally have three scenes per chapter and normally around 20 chapters, so around 60 scenes total.

---The Resolution: Heroine chooses hero over her father. Heroine's mother chooses her daughter over her husband, who is being mule-headed. Through Hutton's words and Ben's acts of kindness and fear of losing his family, heroine's father comes to realize his prejudice is ugly and makes amends.

---Story Timeline: six month period

(For blog post-length sake, I left off some of the detail, but this will at least give you a gist of what kinds of things I write into the Plotstorm.)

Cheryl Wyatt