How I Move My Plot Points from A to B in My Fiction Novels

Are you a planner when it comes to writing, or do you fly by the seat of your pants? I’ve asked this question on social media a few times before, and the verdict seems to be about half-and-half. But that’s understandable—we authors are as diverse in our processes as we are in our books. What works for some does not work for others. It’s all good, as long as you know what works for you.

When it comes to the subject of “planning” vs. “pantsing,” there are arguments to be made for both techniques… actually, it might be more accurate to say there are arguments to be made against both. How can you possibly know where you’re going with your story, for example, if you don’t plan out the details before you start? On the other hand, doesn’t planning out every detail stifle your creativity in letting the story evolve naturally? There is no right answer.

Me personally? I am both. I plan out the general, overarching story, and then I fly by the seat of my pants to make the jumps between the major elements work. I know where my main characters are going to end up in a vague sense, but I have no clue what journey they will take to get there.

Take, as an example, my current work-in-progress, The Gatekeepers. I knew in advance that my main character, Daggs, would be a best-selling author writing about ghosts, hauntings and paranormal encounters. I knew that he would meet Nicola, a young Scottish woman who sees ghosts. And I knew that, together, they would go on an adventure of discovery, they would share a common tragic life experience, and that each one had something to teach the other about him or herself.

That was the planning part (plus, throw in a few pre-designed scenarios of where all this might be taking place). But as for the pantsing, I went into the manuscript with so many questions that would eventually need to be answered. How, exactly, do Nicola and Daggs end up going on this adventure together? What are the circumstances that bring this about? Nicola will have to teach Daggs something about himself (and vice versa)… but what? And is she going to know what she has to teach him, or will something about her facilitate Daggs’ learning that lesson by himself?

This is what pantsing with a plan looks like, and it’s the way I generally get from point A to point B in all of my plots. From the very first chapter, I worked out in my head a plausible scenario where Daggs and Nicola would meet. He writes about ghosts and hauntings? Okay, let’s bring him to Scotland for a research trip and put him up in the pub Nicola owns on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. That’s about as much planning as I started the first chapter with.

But in getting from A to B, this is the part of writing I find the most fun, because there is that element of suspense, where I wonder (sometimes with nail-biting tension) if I’m going to be able to resolve a sub-plot, or develop it further when I have no clue how to make that happen. So when I write the first chapter, keeping in mind the general direction I want to go, I start picking up on themes that I can carry forward. I never know where these themes are going to take me, but I generally recognize when I’ve found them. In the case of The Gatekeepers, the ghosts that Nicola sees on a regular basis are becoming agitated, as if they’re expecting something to happen. This, I decided as I was going along, was because of Daggs’ impending visit. They know something… and it’s been a lot of fun working out what it is they know and what that means to the overall storyline.

At this point, I’m not going to say more because I’d be giving too much of the story away… and I don’t even know myself how it’s going all going to end since I’m only about a third of the way in. But resolving plot points when I don’t know how I’m going to do it takes a lot of thinking and testing and working things out in my head. Walking my dog on the nature trails around my house? Nicola and Daggs come with me. Watching my son’s hockey game? I’ve usually missed large chunks of it because I’m talking to Nicola and Daggs in my head to see how they’re going to respond to one scenario or another.

Often, these sub-plots resolve themselves in a way that is emotionally satisfying for me as the writer… as in “Okay, I like it. That makes sense.” But every now and again, I have a moment where I literally shout, “Eureka!”

This is precisely what happened with one major plot point in The Gatekeepers that relates to what Daggs is going to teach Nicola and vice versa. It just came to me. Out of the blue like a lightning bolt (pardon the cliche) while I was in the shower loosely pondering the problem at hand. My resulting “A-ha” was so loud and enthusiastic that my husband heard me from three floors down and came up to ask me if I was okay.

As soon as my hair was rinsed free of conditioner, I tore downstairs, dripping wet, with a hastily-donned robe, and proceed to rattle off at breakneck speed what I had decided for my characters.

Cheers to the significant others in our lives who put up with our writers’ quirks.

This is what I love so much about being a writer. It’s those moments that you don’t know are going to come to you. In my case, getting from A to B is an adventure because often I don’t know how I’m going to make it happen until the answer hits me out of nowhere. But now that I think of it, that’s not entirely true—they’re not out of nowhere. I arrive at them because as I’m writing, I’m continually picking up threads that keep the story tied together. Eventually, as I pull at the threads more and more, adding new ones as I go, they knit together into a pattern. I don’t have any inkling of what the pattern will be when I start, but I know it when I see it. When the threads are so intricately woven that the pattern is obvious and (dare I say?) beautiful.

It’s part practice, part intuition, and part love of stories. That’s how I do it, anyway. What about you? Leave a comment and tell me your process for how you develop plot points, close loopholes, and bring the elements of your story from A to B.