4 Thought Provoking Methods To Use When Planning Your Novel
Planning a novel can feel daunting. You may have the idea, the characters, or even a scene in mind, but how do you feed this through your pen onto paper? How do you take your story further? How on earth do you write the full 80,000 words?
Whilst it can be easy to get going, sustaining the motivation, story and momentum can be hard. You can end up deleting whole chapters because the outline you thought was great has just fallen apart.
This could be because you’re not using the best method for your creative process when planning your novel.
How to improve your creative process
Overcoming this step and figuring out the best way to improve your creative process takes initiative. It takes time, practice, and patience.
What if the methods in this blog don’t help? What if they don’t work for you?
Never fear! Some methods may not work for you. It’s all good. This is where you can take inspiration, try different techniques, and create something new that works with you.
Your writing process is adaptable. Some writers can create their own methods from scratch, but most of us need help from techniques that are made and used by others – either way, it’s okay!
In this blog, we share four helpful models that have helped amateur and expert writers overcome their creative blocks to help inspire and engage your creative process and discover what works for you.
4 Thought Provoking Methods To Use When Planning Your Novel
1. Randy Ingermanson’s Snowflake Model
The Snowflake Model is best drawn on a piece of paper, as it’s easier to note down your ideas and see the visual outlines created on the different branched sections of a snowflake.
Using the forked points it allows you to visually input your story idea by adding more information onto each main branch of the snowflake that represents the chapters.
Following it clockwise around the shape, you can pinpoint the necessary information needed for each chapter of your story in chronological order – from the introduction to the rising tension, the climax where the tension reaches its peak, the solution and then the resolution.
This method is navigable, easy to use and is a visually appealing way of laying out chapter points, rather than making it a challenge and keeping your plot in lengthy paragraphs on a Word document or on paper, which can be difficult to find that one piece of information vital to your story. It’s worth a try if you’re a visual plotter.
2. Dan Harmon’s Story Circle
Similarly to The Snowflake Model, The Story Circle follows the same technique of using a shape to help plot your story in a chronological structure.
However, there aren’t any extra lines to make each part complex or richer with information like the previous model. Instead, draw a circle and section segments as though you’re creating a pie chart. You can then use numbers to show the chapter progressions and jot down action notes for each segment.
This method is just as navigable and may even be considered easier due to its simplicity, especially if you are just starting out in planning your story. If each segment's notes are kept short and to the point, it makes the model easier to refer to.
3. Free Writing
If you’re a fast typist or fast writer, this one may be for you! If your brain is moving at a million miles per minute, it may be easier for you to sit down and just write out your story as it comes to you on paper or digitally.
This is also known as ‘pantsing’ – writing from the ‘pants’ of your seat. Or simply, writing without a plan.
Some people find this to be easier – when you’re finished spilling your ideas onto a page, you can then go back and finalise it, add more to it and reorganise it until it becomes better. Free writing can be daunting and difficult for most people, and that is perfectly fine because not everyone can just write their ideas in the planning stage.
It is recommended to set a time limit when free writing or doing it until you feel like nothing else is coming to you. This is so that you can give yourself breaks and then keep coming back and adding more.
Some people may use this method and then organise it into one of the visualising models, like The Story Circle, before drafting the story, so it is easier to refer to.
4. Bookend Method
The Bookend Method is writing the start and the end of your novel first, and then filling in the gaps. J.K Rowling is known to have written the epilogue for the ending of the seventh Harry Potter book before writing the others.
This technique is good for those who have a general idea of how their story will end and how it will start. Having a sense of what happens at the end allows you to build the characters and the tension along the way and not lose track of what the outcome is. You’ve heard the old adage, write with the end in mind? Well, this is where it rings true.
You may choose to start with this method if you prefer writing your story ideas out first, and then moving on to organising and putting it all into a diagram.
Embrace Patience
Neil Gaiman, who wrote Coraline, American Gods and Stardust, said: “This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard, and you put one word after another until it’s done. It’s that easy, and that hard.”
Even successful writers struggle to write.
It takes practice and many, many drafts to produce something to a publishable standard or anything you consider “good enough,” so don’t be worried about the first draft of your plans being something you are unhappy with – there is plenty of time to reshape them.
It takes time and effort to figure out what works for you as a writer when planning. Some methods will work for some, but not for others – it is all about discovering your process and finding the best method that works for you in your planning stage.
