Thursday, March 21, 2013

Plotting...the bane of my existence...

I've had problems lately with my plots. I get so far and the story peters out...so I went looking for help on the internet and found some good advice. A lot of it is stuff I already know, and which, in earlier mss, came naturally to me. Now, however, I'm reading again about Three Act Structure, character goals, theme and resolution and hoping they help jar something free so I can finish at least one of my three unfinished manuscript and, preferably, all three.

Here are some of the sites I bookmarked:

The Single Most Powerful Writing Tool You’ll Ever See That Fits On One Page

Your Plot, Step by Step

PLOT---Part Three: Making Plans and Consulting the Maps

How to Use a Plot Notebook When Writing a Book

I know part of my problem is that I'm so caught up with so many projects that I'm not focussing enough on just my writing. That comes from having sacrificed (willingly) so much while I was in school. I thought at first I'd just lost altogether my ability to write and plot, but discovered in the library at Whistler in January that when the ONLY thing I had to focus on was my story, I accomplished more than I had in a while. Maybe that's my secret - I need to lock myself in the Whistler Library!

How about you - what do you do when your story stalls?

Teresa

2 comments:

Melissa Amateis said...

StoryFix is an awesome website - I read his book and suddenly, everything "clicked" for me regarding plotting.

Tess said...

I know - I have to go back there and explore some more!