In How I Write A First Draft Part 1 I looked at Step 1 – Daydreaming and Step 2 – Free Writing.
Now it’s time to pull things into order a little with Step 3 – Plotting.
If I’ve had a month of free writing I will end up with about 40-50 thousand words. The only problem is I always think, “Sweet! I’ve nearly written a book!” But in truth a lot of the free writing is me doing character development or writing overviews of where I think the book will go. A lot of it is stuff that will never make it into the book.
But the main thing is by now, I have a pretty solid idea of what this book is about, where it is going and how it will get there.
As I mentioned in my previous post, 3 Tools I use When Plotting I use a number of tools to help me with plotting. Over the years these tools have helped me develop my Bern Eden Beat Sheet Spreadsheet. Basically it’s a template that I use to give my story its skeleton and it means once I’ve filled in a few details I can dive into writing instead of wondering where to start.
Here’s what it looks like.
Tab 1 Basic Beat Sheet: I start off with a copy of Jami Gold’s beat sheet. This has been a fantastic tool as I put in here about how many words I want the book to be and it shows me where each of my important points need to be, namely the inciting incident, the midpoint, the all is lost. I don’t do much else with it, it’s just a really good visual tool to get me started.
Tab 2: Beats and Descriptions: Using Savannah Gilbo’s description of each beat as a guide I map out a bit more detail. Even though this will be really rough at this stage I like to have a description of what is happening in each of the fifteen beats to direct me. They may change but that’s fine.
Tab 3: Broken Into Scenes: This is the tab I will use the most while I’m working. It basically becomes my chapter overview. Again, I use Savannah Gilbo’s guide where she shows how to break the beats down into scenes. I can also see about how many chapters I will have. I aim for 1500 words a chapter but if it ends up being 1300 words or 2000 words it doesn’t matter. I’d rather write the scene as it needs to be than fix it to a number.
At this stage I will also set up a document in Scrivener writing programme and create the chapters I’ve worked out using the beat sheets above. Then I can start filling in chapters with the free writing I’ve already done. It will look a little bit like this.
Tab 4 Character List: This is the bible part of the spreadsheet and I will be coming back to this all the time. It’s the thing that stops me calling someone Gerry at the start and Bert by the end. Every time I create a character or mention someone I note it here along with any descriptive traits I might have mentioned. This is also a great tool for keeping track of relationships and I note what connection they have to the main character and others.
Tab 5 Age Timeline: Much like the character list this tab keeps my characters and their backstory in check. I once had a side character whose backstory was that she was a war bride but I realised that setting a book in current day means war brides from WW2 are now well into their late nineties. Not impossible but this grandma was probably too sprightly for that age. Also, if you have children in your story it pays to know how old they are and what year they are at school. There is a big difference between a six-year-old in year one and a ten-year-old in year five. I can also factor in if the main characters are the same age, did they leave school in the same year? Did they go to uni? When did they get there first job? It may not make it into the story but it keeps the characters more focused.
Tab 6 Scene Timeline: If the above traces the characters and their history this sheet traces what the characters are doing day to day. If the story opens on a Saturday morning, I note it on this tab and then I know if they are at work or going somewhere it will be during the week. I also log side characters movements too. So, if a love interest goes out of town for a few days I will note when they left and when they got back. It makes it much easier to make sure what you want to happen in a few weeks or even months doesn’t happen in the space of three days.
Tab 7 Brain Dump: And finally, this is the place I dump thoughts and ideas or things I need to come back to. As I move through ideas or decide not to go with them I will cross them off or delete. I like to keep this sheet pretty small as everything should really be in the manuscript document as much as possible.
That’s it! From here on in it’s all about the writing really. This excel document is very much a working document and I am adding to it and tweaking it constantly but it’s probably the most important document I use to keep my writing on track in more ways than one.
What about you? Have you created any templates that you can’t live without?