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A writer's difficulty drawing a Plot Planner line inspires this post. The first time we met at a plot workshop/retreat, literary agent Jill Corcoran asked me to draw the line for her. Her enthusiastic endorsement of my linear approach to a creative process later led to the Plot Whisperer books.

Writers who have been showing up weekly for the past ten weeks as part of the Plot from Beginning to End Series have begun sharing plot planners. One writer is waiting for her physicist husband to draw the line for her. Another writer has constructed four boards, one for each part of the Universal Story.

The Plot Planner lines I share are so straight and clear in an attempt to support my rather chaotic imagination. Mostly they're so perfect because that's the way people who have created my graphics have drawn them.

I'd love to have an artistic rendering that gives freedom to writers that whatever they draw is good enough. And good enough is perfect.

In the meantime, I wish I could be there to personally draw the line for you.

Today I write.
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PLOT WORKSHOPS and RETREATS
A PATH to PUBLISHING using the Plot Whisperer Workbook: Step-by-Step Exercises to Help You Create Compelling Stories
Choose the NOVEL TRACK or the PICTURE BOOK TRACK for 4, 10 and 16-week workshops to ensure you understand concept, plotting, character development, scene development, action and emotional arc development, as well has how to pitch your work to agents, editors, and readers. Live online video chat technology. I recommend writers of all genres and all ages take at least one picture book plot workshop. Narrows all plot concepts down to 28 pages and 500 words for clarity.

WRITER PATH PLOT and SCENE RETREATS in the heart of the Santa Cruz MountainsYour story deserves to be told. Your writer’s soul needs to be nourished. Over a weekend you’ll learn how to identify and write the key lynch-pin scenes that build a page-turning story, master crucial scene types and go deeper into your plot by applying the three key layers that run through all great fiction: action, emotion and theme. Reserve your spot now for the 1st Annual Writer Path Retreat.

For more: Read my Plot Whisperer and Blockbuster Plots books for writers.

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The drop in the energy of a Universal Story is symbolized on the Plot Planner by the downward line after the Crisis. This entire downward line can be viewed as the threshold separating the middle of the story from the end. Literally, a threshold is a doorsill or the starting point of an experience.

On the Plot Planner and in the Universal Story, this threshold encompasses the integration of and preparatory time needed after the crisis and before the actual crossing over into the final quarter of the story. The length of the line as the energy contracts depends on your story. In high-action stories, the drop in intensity may occur over one short scene. At its core, this time of regrouping takes place on a purely cognitive level. Though the protagonist may assemble the resources she plans to take forward with her, until she takes her first step toward her final goal she remains in the middle of the story and, as yet, has not entered the final one-quarter of the story.

This is a time, whether brief of for several scenes, of rest for the protagonist and recovery after the Crisis. It's a time of recollection, integrations, assessment and review. Before blindly reacting as always, finally now, she takes time to re-evaluate, re-invent, re-form, and redo things. She's unsteady after all that has befallen her. She makes mistakes, misjudgments and misreading as she reflects and prepares for the final ascent to the Climax.

The drop in energy allows for the reader and audience to rebuild anticipation and expectation for what will happen when the protagonist ultimately leaves the middle of the story and sets out for the climax at the end of the story.

As the protagonist considers the thoughts that have held her captive, she can mourn what was. But rather than hold onto those same old beliefs and continue to retard her progress, now she is free to reshape her life by speaking and acting in her own truth. Once she develops a new belief system, a shift occurs in her life. Having wakened to her potential, she is finally clear to seize that which she most longs for. And… the End begins. (Excerpt taken from The Plot Whisperer: Secrets of Story Structure Any Writer Can Master.)
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PLOT WORKSHOPS and RETREATS
A PATH to PUBLISHING using the Plot Whisperer Workbook: Step-by-Step Exercises to Help You Create Compelling Stories
Choose the NOVEL TRACK or the PICTURE BOOK TRACK for 4, 10 and 16-week workshops to ensure you understand concept, plotting, character development, scene development, action and emotional arc development, as well has how to pitch your work to agents, editors, and readers. Live online video chat technology. I recommend writers of all genres and all ages take at least one picture book plot workshop. Narrows all plot concepts down to 28 pages and 500 words for clarity.

WRITER PATH PLOT and SCENE RETREATS in the heart of the Santa Cruz MountainsYour story deserves to be told. Your writer’s soul needs to be nourished. Over a weekend you’ll learn how to identify and write the key lynch-pin scenes that build a page-turning story, master crucial scene types and go deeper into your plot by applying the three key layers that run through all great fiction: action, emotion and theme. Reserve your spot now for the 1st Annual Writer Path Retreat.

For more: Read my Plot Whisperer and Blockbuster Plots books for writers.

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Dear Ms. Alderson:

I've been reading your "Blockbuster Plots" and loving it, but I have a question about the plot planner (examples of what Plot Planners and how different writers use the plotting method.). As I understand it, we're to draw the lines for an ideal plot on a piece of banner paper and then we write in our scenes above and below the lines, depending on whether our protagonist is in challenged/in control in the scene or not. So far, so good.

From a diagnostic point of view, though, wouldn't it make more sense if we "graphed" the plot we've actually created (showing the various rises and falls in our plot action and tension), and then compared our graph to the ideal pattern? In other words, when we place our scenes along a line that shows rising action, we may not notice that our our conflicts are not actually escalating as they should.

For example, our own scenes may be too static or may actually decline (God forbid), but we might be fooled by the contrary visual cues of our Plot Planner, with its nicely rising lines. Maybe you discuss this elsewhere, but it seems like a good intermediate step would be for the writer to evaluate each scene for its level of tension or conflict (maybe using a 1-to-10 scale), and then show this on a "graph" (i.e., a plot planner that shows the pattern of our actual scenes, rather than an ideal pattern).

Once we've created this graph, we could then tweak the pattern (by rearranging the order of the scenes, by deleting static scenes or by ramping up the tension in existing scenes) so that our story more nearly matches the ideal plot pattern. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Many thanks again for writing "Blockbuster Plots" and for making all those terrific Youtube videos . 

Your teaching is amazingly clear and helpful!
Sincerely,
Kate
Salt Lake City, Utah

*****Thank you, Kate, for your thoughtful email query. I applaud your understanding of the Plot Planner concept of rising action perfectly! I agree with everything you say and believe you've come up with an excellent suggestion for writers creating a Plot Planner for their own novel, memoir, screenplay.

~~~~~Take the PlotWriMo Pre-Challenge




6) Watch the Monday Morning Plot Book Group Series on YouTube. Scroll down on the right of this post for a directory the book examples and plot elements discussed.

For more tips about how to use plot and the Universal Story in your novel, memoir or screenplay, visit:
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She's brash about her character's violence and flippant about the character's flippant coping strategies. At moments, I sense the writer is acting the character.