Jessie Cal
Plotting Hacks for Pantsers
Jessie Cal
“Writing cannot be taught, but it can be learned” – Steven King, quoting a friend
What does that quote mean?
- Someone’s talent cannot be taught to you
- However, you, with your own talent, can learn in your own way
- Leaving plenty of room for individuality and uniqueness
I’m not here to teach you the “right way” to plot or pants
Through this presentation, I’m simply going to show you what has worked for me
If you find a thing or two that you would like to incorporate into your own writing process – mission accomplished
Who is this class for?
- It’s not only for Pantsers to learn the hacks of plotting
but also
- For plotters to learn that you don’t have to overplot before you start writing. If fact, there are many benefits to not knowing all the details
- So, if you’re a pantser or plotter, you can benefit from this class
What can you expect from this class?
This class is not trying to make you choose between pantsing and plotting
- Plotting vs pantsing
- Architect vs gardener
The key is in merging both
Now … why do I say that’s the key?
- Saves time
- Energy
- Heartache
Hitting dead ends and deleting thousands of words breaks my heart – every time
What’s another reason we want to merge both?
Pro’s and Cons of Both …
Pantsing Cons
- End up writing a lot of fluff
- Destination not clear
- Dead ends
- Deleted words
Pantsing Pros
- Discovery
- Excitement to see what happens next
- Unexpected surprises
- New ideas
- Allow characters to be driven by emotion
Plotting Cons
- Spoiler boredom
- Confined in a box
- Frustration when characters go off-script
Plotting Pros
- Roadmap
- Avoid dead ends
- Destination is clear
- No deleting words
Imagine If You Could Combine the Benefits of Both Methods
Merging the Benefits of Both Pantsing and Plotting would Help You To:
- Write books faster
- Write stronger stories
- Write deeper characters
- And most importantly … write BESTSELLERS
Plot a Novel in One Page
- Now, before I start listing the hacks, there’s one thing to note. These hacks aren’t things you haven’t heard before. But I call them hacks because if you do these 4 things in order, you can plot a novel in one page
- These hacks are quick and simple … and the reason for that is because they are designed to set a foundation for your story with the minimum amount of plotting
- I personally like to call it the Catalyst Method. Does that mean that, once you learn this method, you won’t need anything else? Not necessarily. Then … why learn the Catalyst Method?
Why Learn the Catalyst Method?
- If you had to wire your car every time you wanted to drive it, how long do you think it would take? For most of us, we would probably not even bother.
- But what is it that we have that makes all of this a lot simpler? The panel dashboard. With the turn of a key and the pressing of a few buttons, we can be on our way.
- Think of this class as that panel dashboard. It will simplify the process, but you’ll still need your writing wires, sort to speak, in order to incorporate it into your story while you pants.
That being said, let’s look at the first hack …
Hack #1 – Write a Logline
- How do you choose a logline when there’s so much about the story you still haven’t discovered?
- Here’s a hack …
- Focus on the CATALYST
- This doesn’t mean you need to write your whole story on one sentence. It means … write your inciting incident in one sentence. It’s the Catalyst
- What happens that causes your story to shift? That’s where you want to start
- This is important because the following hacks will branch out from this one pivotal scene in your book. This means that, in order for you to master these hacks, the very first scene you will need to think of is the inciting incident.
How do You Choose a Logline?
- One great way to do this is to look up loglines of movies in Netflix or IMDb. Notice how …
- They describe the movie or TV show in only one sentence
- How these lines are always stating the catalyst of the story, In other words, what makes the story shift.
Why Does This Method Work?
- Simply put, if this one line motivates you enough to write the whole book, you can be sure that, when you put that line into your blurb, readers will be just as motivated to read it.
Examples:
- The Flash. After being struck by lightning, Barry Allen wakes up from his coms to discover he has been given the power of super speed, becoming the flash, fighting crime in Central City.
- Notice: It doesn’t say he’s a forensics expert. It doesn’t say he’s in love with his best friend. It only focuses on the catalyst, all the while leaving lots if room for discovery.
- The Blacklist. A new FBI profiler, Elizabeth Keen, has her entire life uprooted when a mysterious criminal, who has eluded capture for decades, turns himself in and insists on speaking only to her.
- Notice: It doesn’t say she’s married. It doesn’t say what he wants from her, or why he’s requesting her. It simply states the catalyst. When everything changed for the profiler – and that’s it. Look how much room for discovery there is.
- Hunger Games. Katniss Everdeen voluntarily takes her younger sister’s place in the Hunger Games, a televised competition in which two teenagers from each of the twelve of Panem are chosen at random to fight to the death.
- Notice: It doesn’t go into detail about her life in Panem or the factions or how people are poor, etc. It only focuses on the catalyst -when everything changes for her.
- Twitlight. When Bella Swan moves to a small town in the Pacific northwest, she falls in love with Edward Cullen, a mysterious classmate who reveals himself to be a 108-year-old vampire.
- Notice: It doesn’t say she left her mom, moved in with her dad, and feels an outcast in school, etc. It only sticks to the catalyst.
- The Proposal. A pushy boss forces her young assistant to marry her in order to keep her visa status in the US and avoid deportation to Canada.
- Safe Haven. A young woman with a mysterious past lands in Southport, North Carolina, where her bond with a widower forces her to confront the dark secret that haunts her.
Hack #2 – Get to Know Your Characters
Ask: What do I know about my main character?
- If you have two, start with the one you’re most excited about
- If you don’t know much about them, where do you start?
- If it’s a later book in the series, then you may want to use that as a starting point. If not, you can start with the logline you used in Hack #1.
- Start with an example:
Nothing like a pitbull charging in the distance to make Michelle jump through the window of a stranger’s car while parked on the side of the road.
Heroine Hero Relationship
Michelle Name? ● What would glue them together?
24 years old 26 years old What if a paparazzi caught
Lives in New York Lives in New them on camera, and in order to
Little Sister is Going York avoid a scandal, he asks her to
through Medical Celebrity pretend to be his girlfriend?
Treatments Bad Boy ● How would each benefit from the
Raised in Foster Care Football Star arrangement?
Multiple Jobs - Michelle is offered a lawyer for
Afraid of Dogs a custody case for her sister
Estranged Mother - Hero puts out the fire with the
press, avoiding a scandal and securing his football job
Milestone’s Outline
– If you feel you need more in order to get your juices flowing, here are 9 of my favorite questions to dig deeper into knowing my character’s motivations
Act 1
1. What’s missing in their life?
2. What are your character’s flaws?
3. What do they think the “want”?
4. What do they really “need”?
5. What opportunity rises that give the hero what they “want”?
Act 2
6. How does your hero go about getting what they want in the wrong way?
7. What are the consequences of your hero going about it the wrong way?
8. How does your hero reconcile that what they “Want” is not what they “need”?
Act 3
9. How does your hero go about getting what they “need” the right way?
10. What’s no longer missing in your hero’s life?
Notice: Act 1, Question 5 in the Inciting Incident
Hack #3 – Pick Your Tropes
Now, if you’ve written the logline above and scribbled some things down about your characters, and their relationships, then you should already have an idea of which tropes you will be able to use.
Take a list of tropes and circle two that will be the main ones for your story. Underline any additional tropes you would like to throw in there along the way. (even if you’re not quite sure it’ll fit. Just do it,)
Heroine Hero Relationship
Michelle Name? ● What would glue them together?
24 years old 26 years old What if a paparazzi caught
Lives in New York Lives in New them on camera, and in order to
Little Sister is Going York avoid a scandal, he asks her to
through Medical Celebrity pretend to be his girlfriend?
Treatments Bad Boy ● How would each benefit from the
Raised in Foster Care Football Star arrangement?
Multiple Jobs - Michelle is offered a lawyer for
Afraid of Dogs a custody case for her sister
Estranged Mother - Hero puts out the fire with the
press, avoiding a scandal and securing his football job
She takes care of her little sister: single parent trope
Paparazzi: celebrity trope
Plays football: sports trope
Avoiding a scandal: bad boy trope
Asking her to pretend to be his girlfriend: fake relationship trope
Examples:
- After a concussion during a hockey game, hero goes to find his fiancé to give her a kiss, only to get slapped in the face and told they have been broken up for two years
Sports, celebrity, amnesia, second chance, secrets, coming home
- Heroine has 30 seconds to pitch her idea to the CEO during an elevator ride. But when a spider falls into her blouse, she panics, strips down to her bre, and falls into the arms of the CEO, only to be met by a crows of paparazzis on the ground floor.
Boss/employee romance, forced proximity, fake relationship, rags-to-
riches, secrets
Hack #4. Strip Down Your Character Arc
There is a lot involved in a character arc. However, when you strip off all the layers, you[re really only left with two things:
Selfish vs Unselfish
Hero finds a way to reach his goal, but because he hasn’t learned the theme, he goes about it the wrong way, the selfish way. Things should only get better after your hero learns the theme, and actively works at fixing the problem the right way, the unselfish way.
Examples:
- Hunger Games. External Goal: Survival.
- Selfish. Every decision she made initially made in the arena was
thinking of her own survival: selfish. The longer she stuck by herself, things did not work out for her. Even when she teamed up with Rue, she only did it because it was her best chance of survival.
- Unselfish. She learns the theme by realizing that survival would mean
nothing if she has to kill Peetr. So, she puts the berries in her mouth, ready to die.
- Twilight. External Goal: Keeping Bella Safe. Edward tries to keep away from Bella because of hoe blood-thirsty she makes him feel.
- Selfish. Edward makes a selfish decision to be with Bella, despite the
strong temptation of wanting to kill her. He also selfishly puts her in harm’s way. That’s when a killer targets Bella.
- Unselfish. When he has to suck the venom out of Bella’s system, he
doesn’t think about himself, or how tempting it would be … he thinks of Bella and makes the decision a great cost to himself.
- Beaus and Arrows. External Goal. Emory needs to thaw Blair’s frozen heart.
- Selfish. It wasn’t his fault that her heart froze, and as cupid, there are
consequences when that happens. Now, if he doesn’t fix his mistake, he will be banished back to his home world. So, through the whole book, although he goes out of his way to help Blair find true love, ultimately, he’s doing it so that he’s not banished.
- Unselfish. Emory finally breaks up one of his couples, who didn’t love
each other, but Emory was keeping them together just so that he didn’t have a break-up on his record. As for Blair, he finally tells her he fell in love with her, risking his job and everything he has worked for.
- Everything, Everything. External Goal: Keep Healthy, Survive.
- Unselfish. She listens and believes everyone regarding what she can or
cannot do in order to maintain her health and survive.
- Selfish – the Good Kind. She decides to stand for herself and confronts
her mother about her diagnosis. She finds out she does not have the illness she was told she had, and decides to live her life as she sees fit.
Summary. Earlier in this presentation, I mentioned that using this method, you could plot your story in one page. What would that look like?
For copy: go to jcalbooks.com
That’s pretty much it!