Plotting
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You are currently reading a thread in /lit/ - Literature
You are currently reading a thread in /lit/ - Literature
How does lit plot their novel? Chapter outlines? Graph's? Timelines?
notes scribbled on the margins of my legal pads. every few hundred pages ill have a map thingy that roughly lists the major event in each major scene.
two tessaracts, arranging the plot elements along the discursive dimensions i want to explore and positioning the characters inside each sector.
>>7393986
> graph's
Please tell me this is a typo
You've never done a time/intensity graph for a novel nigger?
>>7394012
Are you rusing? If not show a picture
Writing flowed intuitively with some stops to plan things out until now. I wanted to advance the plot so I thought to myself "where am I and where am I going to end up in the near future. From there it was easy
>>7393986
I just keep those stuff in my brain, usually a string of scenes and context/theme building
I make it up as I go along.
(I have never finished a story in my entire life)
>plot
Do I look like some kind of unwashed pleb to you?
>>7394032
he's obviously rusing you shitty frogposter
Multiple .rtf files.
Get on my level.
>>7393986
>How
4chan threads
>>7395335
>>7391851
>nature of new generation
>nature of the new media
>>7393986
A mixture of notes and lists in my numerous planning notebooks, notecards, and crazy shit on my dry erase board. I really do like the system that tv shows/movies use with notecards arranged and rearranged on large corkboards.
>>7395328
Oh, shit, you wrote a quarter of eighteen pages?! Fucking madman.
>>7395380
No, each paper represents a novel in a series of an epic. Each paper clipped item is a major plot point.
Pic related is my last series at 4400 pages
>>7395328
This doesn't look like a very effective way to organise your plotpoints.
>>7395328
>all that Deus ex Machina
I guess it's fine since you're writing YA sci-fi, but still.
nerds worship plot
Think up plot.
Write some of it.
Change entire focus of plot.
Repeat.
I just did it all in my head mostly. I write notes occaisionaly, mainly just dialog i think up. My notes are totally unorganized, no system to it at all, just random shit.
Works for me, but that's just my mindset. Even in school i rarely took notes, i could always remember shit. Even when i did take notes it was always random, unorganized shit.
Plot is a crutch
Do like DeLillo, find inspiration and begin to write off it with the confidence of knowing exactly where it's going
DeLillo writes most his short stories and some of his novels this way (Mao II for instance)
>>7396076
>Plot is a crutch
This is what uncreative douches tell themselves to justify their rambling bullshit stories that are 10k words about a guy sitting in a coffee shop and pondering the universe. Then telling themselves that their stuff is just too good to be published.
>>7396080
There's other bookstore sections than science fiction & fantasy, son.
>>7396113
Yeah, and none of them are called, "Pretentious 20 year olds living with their mother writing ten pages of bullshit describing sand."
>>7394012
a Tessaract? draw one I dare you!
>>7396132
You're also not getting published. If you're cool with that, go for it.
>>7396133
Neither are you Mr Genre Fiction. Enjoy your oversaturated market.
>>7396139
Well, yeah I have been. Why assume that someone who values plot writes genre fiction, anyway?
If you think genre is over-saturated, you know how many anxy never-will-be writers are out there producing plot-less crap? They probably make up 90% of wannabe writers.
>>7396144
>Stopped arguing that plot is necessary.
Aha.
>>7396147
Uh...when did I do that?
Calm down, you two.
Here, have a delightful sunrise.
>>7396158
You know, why don't you go back in that faggot shed and write another 3 books about intergalactic nascar and waifu fucking?
Oh shit, they're on to me
>>7396175
No, he uses a mallet for de fence
>>7396175
He needs it to fight off all that groupy tail that comes sniffing around for him.
Sometimes the gas caps are tightened down by the hand of God. By tapping on the edges with the hammer it gets loosened enough to unscrew. And yes, to fight away the homeless insane which is my primary reading demographic.
>>7393986
I make up the entire story on the spot, write up bullet points, write up characters, then begin writing.
As I go and during breaks, I'll think of ways to improve and implement them as such.
>>7396193
That's the best way.
>>7396023
tldr
>>7396255
Very long, should read
It's about 175 pages longer than h.p.
I randomly think something like, "wouldn't it be cool if we could make calls without phones" and then start writing. By the time I reach the topic of phone calls, there's been a dozen plot twists, cliffhangers, three conspiracies, an inter-galactic war, a cast of 50 people introduced and three prequels.
>>7396306
>>7396306
>"wouldn't it be cool if we could make calls without phones"
But we can.
>>7396076
So that's why all his books are so long-winded
>>7396023
you've posted this before right? something about being in discussion with a publishing agent for the series? how's that going anon
>>7394590
This.
I saved this from some anon a while back. Kind of inspirational.
>>7396835
Coming along.....slowly
>>7396867
le ocd
I just carry around a little gay notepad around with me, in case I come up with an idea, situation or just a good sentence. And if I go somewhere for a longer period I have a notebook in which I continue chapters or start new stories. Only in that notebook I have sort of an outline by chapters, but it's only a sentence or two, plain and simple, explaining what I intend to write in that chapter, just so I don't forget it. Usually, I just come up with shit as I go, from time to time I glance in my gay little notepad if there's something in there I could use. And, yeah, all that writing's chaotic as hell.
>>7398160
I have one of those. Had a professor that forced us all to pick up the habit and I'm glad it stuck. I then move up to bigger notebooks for more thorough outlines, then move on to sketch books to draw out characters and give details on their backgrounds. Suffice it to say, I have a lot of goddamn notebooks.
>>7396867
it would be better if you could see the text to make out what is actually going on here
>>7398281
>genre and postmodern fiction
ew
>>7398160
Same. I have some small 100 page, 3x5"notebooks. I'm a couple pages away from finishing my second one. It's great. I keep it by my bed during the night.
>>7393986
I just kind of know the chronology of events. I dictated my plot summary from memory to another writer, he said it was pretty good. The biggest problem comes when I actually write the scenes. The flow of the writing sometimes goes off on a tangent from where I'd like it to be. I try to transcribe the vision I see in my head, but it ends up being a caricature.
>>7398281
What do you write about then, your feelings?
micromanaging vowels in a sentence
>>7399553
WTF?
>>7396165
would read
>>7394586
Just in case you weren't sure -- yes those two things are related.
>>7399553
POETRY
O
E
T
R
Y
>>7399553
Is this autism or am I too stupid to understand?
>>7400025
not that poster, but vowel economy, triangle of vowels, the reason why some languages have ä ö ü and others don't, ect and so on and so on
>>7400053
Okay, but what's the purpose of this and what does it have to do with outlining a novel?
>>7396178
>>7393986
I don't. I have some notes that I usually ignore. Then I just write and redraft to try to capitalize on anything that makes sense. And so on.
>>7400073
thats right, it's a seed for a set of permutations, and then you manipulate them further, occasionally break symmetries.
nietzsche did it in zarathustra, but it's only visible in german.
![mops[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/wY9xfnN.jpg "mops[1].jpg")
>>7400073
>>7400069
I'm a bit short on time.
Think of "Taking care of your vowels" as an analogon to "Taking care of your plot/story points".
The order of vowels can support the desired effect of a poem i.e. creating tension/excitement or repetiveness or funny stuff.
Famous German monovowel poem: Ottos Mops by Ernst Jandl
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMtCa-_ygto
Another example: Sometimes written parts of a stroy simply sound unnatural - Check grammar, check vowels.
So it's not of directly relatings of plot, but related enough to mention and discuss in the same thread.
