12 Days of Planning a Novel: Maintaining Order AND Flexibility (Part 1)

/
12 Days of Planning a Novel: Maintaining Order AND Flexibility (Part 1)

Just two days left to go in 12 Days of Planning a Novel. If you’re like me, you probably have tons of notes for your outline but you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed. As you’ve been working through this series, you’ve made a lot of additions and maybe some changes. Your tidy notes now have arrows and scribbles all over the place.

Don’t worry, these last two posts are going to show you how to organize your outline while maintaining the flexibility that’s often required when writing a novel. Part 1 will focus on the physical methods you can use to do this and in the next post, Part 2, I will discuss some digital ways to do this.

Read More

12 Days of Planning a Novel: Hooks and Cliffhangers

/
12 Days of Planning a Novel: Hooks and Cliffhangers

If you’ve read all the posts in my 12 Days of Planning a Novel series, I really appreciate you hanging in there with me. We are so close to being ready to start drafting a novel! There’s just one last thing I want to talk about: hooks and cliffhangers. Okay, maybe that is two things!

When I really started enjoying the thriller genre, it was because of author Greg Iles. He is a master at creating hooks and cliffhangers and if you feel like you struggle in this area, I highly recommend his books. I almost never stop reading at the end of a chapter because I have to know what happened.

Read More

12 Days of Planning a Novel: Setting as a Character

/
12 Days of Planning a Novel: Setting as a Character

Today I’m going to cover another tip to help beef up your outline. I know by this point, you are probably itching to get writing your novel, but unless you are a pantser, which I don’t think you would be reading this post if you are, you’ll appreciate having a very detailed outline once you start writing.

Read More

12 Days of Planning Your Novel: Subplots

/
12 Days of Planning Your Novel: Subplots

Adding subplots to your novel is a really great way to make your story more interesting as well as help you hit your word count goal. So far in this series, 12 Days of Planning Your Novel, I’ve covered figuring out what to write about, conducting research, character development, story vs. plot, starting your outline, creating conflict, and using other stories as inspiration. Let’s talk about the importance of subplots and how you can add them to your outline in a natural way.

Read More

12 Days of Planning Your Novel: Story Inspiration

/
12 Days of Planning Your Novel: Story Inspiration

At this point in my series, 12 Days of Planning Your Novel, you probably have a pretty good outline but you might be wondering if you have enough ideas to write a full length novel. Don’t worry! The next few posts in this series will provide you with a few more ways you can add scenes to your outline, so when it comes time to write your novel, you’ll have plenty to work from.

Read More

12 Days of Planning Your Novel: Creating Conflict Through Character Motivation

/
12 Days of Planning Your Novel: Creating Conflict Through Character Motivation

Wow, here we are at day six in my twelve day novel planning series already! I hope you have been enjoying the posts so far and are gleaning some useful tips. This series is intended to prepare you to start working on your novel during Christmas break (if you get one), however, you can use these tips to get started anytime.

Read More

12 Days of Planning Your Novel: Start Your Outline

/
12 Days of Planning Your Novel: Start Your Outline

The next step in planning your novel involves mapping out the major scenes in your novel. In my last post, I talked about the difference between story and plot, and in today’s post we are going to be moving on from your story and starting to work more on your plot.

In the post about conducting research for your novel, I mentioned how genre stories have obligatory scenes. We are going to be working with those obligatory scenes today so if you haven’t finished researching the kinds of scenes you need for your novel, this is a great place to start.

Read More

12 Days of Planning Your Novel: Story vs Plot

/
12 Days of Planning Your Novel: Story vs Plot

Here we are at day (or step) number four in my planning your novel series. I hope you’re getting excited to start creating a story involving the characters you created in step three. Today I want to discuss the ‘big picture’ when it comes to your novel so I’ll be discussing the difference between story and plot.

Read More