What attracts you to someone is different every time. My first boyfriend was one of my best friends since the second grade – his personality drew me in. When I met my husband – I hate to sound superficial, but his good looks drew me in first! After that, I was bemused by his brooding personality. Over the years, one thing after another about John keeps me coming back for more. That’s what the right story needs to do for me, too.

What draws you to a new story could be any of a number of things – a character, a situation, a place. I’m usually first interested in a character. Then I think of the perfect place for her and I get really excited. Then I realize what kind of situation would really make me laugh and I just have to put her in it! This is what happened last month when I was brainstorming a new book idea.

I thought of my friend Jill who does everything she can to be in the right place at the right time so God can orchestrate an introduction to Mr. Right. I exaggerated some things to make it funny, brainstormed with friends to find the right situations to put my Jill character in, and kept thinking of new and funny ways to bring a story out of it. I tried to figure out how Character Jill would act and react in various situations, how her family would influence her, and I gave her some dating guidelines that would keep her from taking Mr. Right seriously enough to date him. Anything that would add conflict and humor was added to my mental list of possibilities for the story.

But it’s not always a character specifically that gets me going. I once wondered how a girl during World War 2 would know if she should give up waiting for her boyfriend to come home, assume he was dead like everyone said, and marry the other guy. I wondered what would happen if Cinderella gave dating advice. I wondered what life would be like if I had my own personal superhero. All of those ideas eventually became books or book proposals.

So what part is the most important – character, plot, setting, or something else? The answer is – yes. Character Jill is based on one of my best friends so I already love her – and I couldn’t write about her if I didn’t love her. For all the stories written about people dating and finding the love of their lives, the plot I’m developing is so funny to me and so “on” with our 21st century world that I chuckle every time I think about it. And Character Jill couldn’t have the adventures I’ve chosen for her anywhere but in LA, so I only need to decide if she’ll live in Burbank or Santa Monica (two places I’ve lived and feel confident writing about).

All the factors have to come together to create synergy, more interesting together than they appear separately. When they do, if there’s that first kiss zing, I’m ready to commit. Like Stephanie, I do have a problem sometimes with thinking of all the things that could happen. But I’ve found that usually stems from one of two problems: I have too much story and ideas, and I need to separate out bits for other books, or I don’t have a combination of character, plot and setting that really zing for me.

If I’m psyched about the story, there will be an “ah-ha” moment that signals the end of brainstorming – my commitment to seeing the story through. Could there be a better way to tell the story than the way I’ve chosen? Sure. But I’ll make myself insane trying to “make it better.” I did that once before and ended up with a book I hated. Two years later I was washing dishes and suddenly I knew what that ruined story really should have been about. I’d listened to too many people tell me what I “should” do in the current market, and I lost my passion for the story as I kept changing it. Nothing is going to make your story better if you lose the passion, the first kiss zing.

After finishing a NanoWrimo novel comes elation. I know—I’ve done it three times myself. You heave your chair-shaped butt away from your desk, pat yourself on the back, you re-engage with friends and family, and either feel like you could write this way every day for the rest of your life, or experience temporary burnout and consider never writing again.

Hopefully between November and now you put the results away and didn’t look at them. That will help you come to it with fresh eyes now.

Today’s topic, I know, is “big picture development,” which can sound a little bit scary, like you’ve got to have it all figured out before you even begin to reshape the sprawling morass of words you composed. But I’m here to reassure you that all you have to do first is assess where you are.

To me, that means starting with plot. I know, I already hear some protests out there—after all, Chris Baty, NanoWrimo’s founder himself, suggests that you don’t need a plot to write a novel in thirty days. Not at first, at least. But if you intend to turn your work into something not only readable, but maybe even publishable, you will need to begin a plot search (I promise this is nothing like a snipe hunt!).

A plot search, however, is a lot simpler than it sounds. Ever worked in retail? Ever had to do inventory? Then you’ll be good to go, and I promise it’s a lot more fun to do inventory of your own work.

In order to develop the big picture, you need to know what you’re working with. So, step one is to do a plot inventory. Yes, this takes a little bit of time, so you don’t have to do it in one day. It might even take you a week or two, but you will be so glad you did it.

Gather either a blank notebook, or a set of index cards together for this project.

On a blank page, or on a blank note card, go through each chapter or scene of your work and write down the plot points. Plot points are actions—the “what happened” of your story, and not just when your characters brushed their teeth or made cereal for breakfast—but where they yelled at their mother-in-law, stole a car, made love with someone bad for them, learned they were adopted, and many other actions/events that have potential consequences. (Consequences, by the way, are how you know if a plot point is working or not—good ones have consequences. Boring/bad/unnecessary ones don’t go anywhere).

So your card may look like this:

Scene 1: Bridget’s estranged, heroin-addict sister Barbie shows up on her doorstep one night with a suitcase and a black eye. She’s there to stay. Sisters have brief fight, then Bridget acquiesces, and lets Barbie have the couch.

Or, if you have a less organized plot (or none), your card may look like this:

Chapter 1. Frederick wanders the streets of Prague, looking for a woman who comes to him in dreams and tells him where she’ll be. Lots of description of Prague and people and philosophical musings on love and dreams, a la Milan Kundera.

What you will notice immediately, card after card, or page after page, is which scenes/chapters of yours have actual plot-worthy events/actions, and which ones don’t. When you finish the inventory, you’ll know where things happen, and where they fall flat; who engages in these actions; and where there are big gaping holes.

These big gaping holes and notes on action will be your instructions for getting started on your revision. Where there is no action, you want to put some. Where there is action, you want to make sure that it relates from scene to scene and chapter to chapter, that it builds a story with energy and tension. 

Your big picture, i.e. your plot, should ultimately be a linked series of events/actions and their consequences, which happen to a protagonist (or a few protags if you have more than one) and lead to a kind of climax and finale.

What you might find in this inventory is that some of what you wrote (perhaps more than you hope) is merely notes on a plot—narrative summaries without the hallmarks of scenes (action, drama, and a visual setting in which these are enacted). Now you are tasked to turn this inventory into meaty scenes that bring a story alive.

I will discuss how plot and scenes are crucial to each other in the third week of January here. Stay tuned!

Jordan E. Rosenfeld is a fiction writer, freelance journalist and editor. She is the author of the books, Make A Scene: Crafting a Powerful Story One Scene at a Time (Writer’s Digest Books) and Write Free! Attracting the Creative Life with Rebecca Lawton (http://www.writefree.us/). Jordan is also a contributing editor & columnist to Writer’s Digest magazine. Her articles have also appeared in such publications as, The San Francisco Chronicle, The St. Petersburg Times, The Writer and more. Her book reviews are regularly featured on The California Report, a news-magazine produced by NPR-affiliate KQED radio.

Visit her blog: www.jordanrosenfeld.wordpress.com

This week we’re exploring how we approach that aspect of story-building.

I’m one of those writers that needs to have a good portion of the story written before I can really put the entire thing together. I write pages and pages of character interviews, stream-of-consciousness journaling about characters or plot and many, many scenes. I discover the story in the midst of all those words. I’m always thrilled when I discover another writer who works like me, like Cindy Martinusen Coloma. Last March she wrote a series about what she calls The Puzzle Method and posted it on Randy Ingermansan’s Advanced Fiction Writing blog. If you are like me, you might want to check it out. The first entry starts on March 5, 2008 and the series runs through March 24.

That’s one method for bringing order to the chaos of my initial creativity and guiding me toward completing a project. It’s not the only way, though. (I’m a “P” on the Myers-Briggs personality test and love to explore multiple options. We had a guest who blogged on personality tests, if you want to read that.)

Another way I try to find the story in all my written meanderings is to impose some structure over it. (This is probably the first step for you planners, but it comes in the middle for me.) I have two favorite structures, The Hero’s Journey and, more recently, the “beats” presented in Blake Snyder’s, “Save the Cat.”

After I’ve written a myriad of scenes and know my characters and have a general idea what they are doing and where they need to end, I segue into structuring the plot a little more concretely. (Since I like to keep my options open, nothing is ever really concrete, but at some point, if I want to finish with a story, I have to pin down some specifics.)

I do this by looking at which of my scenes best illustrate the “turning points” or “beats’ of the story. This process can take hours and hours as I play around with various options, but it can also be one of the most rewarding parts of creating a story. This is the time when the character’s story comes into sharper focus, when I see more clearly what defeats and triumphs will best reveal that story and sometimes even when I discover whose story I’m telling.

I keep track of all these scenes and where I want them in the story and any notes or insights I want to include using a great software called yWriter4. I wrote about how I use it and The Hero’s Journey in October. Basically, I create “chapters” for each point in the structure and place the different scenes within those chapters. Because it is so easy to drag and drop scenes from chapter to chapter, add notes and keep track of a myriad of details, this software has fast become my most favorite “toy.”

Whatever the structure you chose and whatever helps (toys) you find to form it, a crucial step in the process of creating a story is getting a clear “big picture” of it. For me that happens in the middle of the process, for you it might be the beginning. However you find or create it, I hope the blogs you read this week will help you refine and perfect the process.

Programming note: It’s the first blog of the year, but the last in our series of goal-setting/rewards. Next week we start on a new series covering the writer’s routine of developing craft. So brush off your NaNo novels from last November or another WIP and get ready for a solid round of editing with help from Jordan E. Rosenfeld, Writer’s Digest author of Make a Scene. She’ll be blogging with us on Tuesdays in January.

My SNAP plan from Author MBA leaves a place to write out specific rewards I can choose from for accomplishing smaller milestones (small rewards) and the big goals (big rewards.) I understand the idea behind the reward system. Especially for writers who do not have publishing contracts to keep them motivated and rewarded.

Rewards are like a paycheck—rewarding myself for doing the work.

Or like a carrot—bribing me to get the work done.

Or symbolic—reminding me of how great it feels to finally finish my novel.

I tend to be a practical person. When I took the SNAP planning class my rewards were on the boring side (buy a plant, get new curtains, a haircut from my favorite stylist). The instructor encouraged me to have a little more fun with the reward system!

My revelation a few weeks ago came via Kitty’s blog when she suggested maybe some people aren’t rewards-oriented people. That was me! Mostly…

Because I distinctly remember one job I had where I got paid extra if I accomplished certain tasks. You better believe I finished those tasks each week! Hmm. So rewards CAN motivate me.

I think my problem is that I’m not very good at giving myself a reward. It doesn’t feel the same as when someone else rewards me. (Like my husband buying me an HP Mini laptop for my birthday when he saw how serious I was getting about my writing again.)

Here is something I found that might interest other writers out there. The spark of the idea came from when I was sick with a cold and watched hours of daytime TV.

Baz Luhrmann, the director of the movie Australia, was on the Martha Stewart show. He brought along scrapbooks that he keeps for each of his movies–like Australia and Moulin Rouge. They were beautiful books that show the creative journey. Of course, his looked to be leather bound, precisely printed books.

After blowing my nose I thought, What a great idea to document the progress of a novel. You could paste in the initial idea you wrote down on the proverbial napkin. Arrange the photos of the places and people you used for inspiration. List any books that helped you write the book. Stick in scraps of material from the dress that your heroine wears. A sketch of the garden where the climax takes place, etc.

The photo at the top of the page is a scrapbook with the title “Once Upon a Time.” I found it in the Current catalog. Along with the book you can purchase papers with a storybook theme–magical; fairytale; maps; far, far away kinds of papers.

The scrapbook combines all three types of rewards: You can buy the scrapbook now as the paycheck for brainstorming/outlining a new WIP. The carrot is that you can’t fill out the pages until you do some work (obviously otherwise you’d have nothing to put in!) And the symbolic reward? Well, once you are finished your book, you’ll have a beautiful scrapbook to remind yourself of all the work you did. The perfect reward? Just maybe.

That’s why today feels like Saturday to me. Yesterday felt like Saturday, too. Since it hasn’t felt like Tuesday for a while, I completely forgot to do my Tuesday work – write this blog to post today! LOL! Then I looked at our calendar and realized that last week I wrote about both last week’s and this week’s topics. Which led me to wonder – would anyone like to know what I’m thinking about personally right now as I plan my writing life for the next year?

Sowing.

During our kind-of-annual writing retreat a couple weeks ago with my friends Kathleen and Lauraine, Kathleen gave me two books by John C. Maxwell – Make Today Count and Running with the Giants. As the three of us talked about what was going on in our lives, and reading some of Make Today Count, we came to see that “sowing” and “discipline” would be high on our list of things to focus on in 2009.

The Biblical teacher Paul wrote in a letter to the people in Corinth, “Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.”

When I read this, I couldn’t help but think about my writing. I’ve been sowing a bit sparingly the last year or two. I’ve been putting in my time, but I haven’t put in enough time to make great strides. And too often I sat down to write reluctantly, afraid no good would come of it and thinking about all the other things I could do that would give me more immediate satisfaction. My writing sometimes sounded like it, too, like it hadn’t come from a place of joy. I’d been trying to do what others said I must – a daily page count or word count, a certain number of hours, etc. – instead of deciding in my heart what I wanted to give and giving it cheerfully.

So that’s one of the things I’m going to change this year. But sowing generously will take a lot of discipline on my part. For one thing, I’ve filled in my “extra” hours with other activities. During the last three months I’ve been working to get those activities out of my life again. For a while at least…to everything there is a season, after all.

I’ve been reading that passage over and over (it’s 2 Corinthians 9:6-8 if you’re interested) trying to understand how to apply it to my situation. It sounds kind of scary hard - I have to decide what I am going to commit to and then discipline myself to not only do it but do it cheerfully, knowing that many seeds take months or years before they become plants, and even longer to bear fruit.

But the part that gives me hope, that lends an exciting air to this venture, that even teases me to make a tiny bit bigger goal than I might otherwise commit to, is the part about God’s grace being with me to such an extent that in all things at all times, I will have all I need to thrive in every good work. Even every good work of fiction!

Cool!

         What are the things I really enjoy doing? Those are the things I need to reward myself with. Here are a few things I consider fun:

• Lunch with a friend
• A chatty phone call
• Time spent on a jigsaw puzzle
• Time spent with a good book
• A writing retreat
• Sleeping in
• A day spent watching sappy movies
• And, as Shonna mentioned a couple of weeks ago, guilt-free time away from the writing.

         Those are the things that truly motivate me. I also like buying books, going clothes shopping, getting a massage or taking a vacation, but all those cost money. And spending that money creates the need, at least in my mind, for the accomplishment to be greater. To keep myself motivated, I need to reward even my small steps, so I save those “pricey” rewards for major accomplishments.

         This past year, as I have worked at establishing a regular writing routine, I have learned that I can consistently devote 2-4 hours each day to writing. My plan for this coming year is to maintain that schedule, with a minimum of 15 hours each week spent on fiction. I am a late night person. I love to stay up late and sleep in. And I can usually be productive doing that. Sometimes, though, I get lazy. I sleep til 9 or I get distracted by email and don’t get any writing done til afternoon, if then. This year, I think I’m going to implement a “routine” that forces myself up by 8 (yes, that is early for me LOL) and at the computer by 9. Once my 15 hours of fiction writing has been accomplished, my reward is that I don’t have to get up to the alarm. I can sleep til I naturally wake up. Or perhaps a better way to implement that is to assess my productivity at the end of each day. If that day’s writing “quota” was reached, I get to sleep in the next day. If not, the next day I use the alarm. Another schedule adjustment I’ll implement is a “writing-free” time zone. I’m not sure exactly when that will be, but probably all day Sundays, weekdays 5-11pm and Saturdays after 3 pm. That will force me to give myself the down-time I need to maintain creativity.

         I think this type of daily writing routine, with its built-in reward-consequence system is exactly what I need. I’m going to add in some milestones, like x-number of pages and attach a chatty phone call as a reward. I’m hopeful this will work with my strengths and personality while compelling me to maintain productivity. I’ll let you know how well I succeed!

         What are your plans?

The world is interested in what you actually accomplished. Your results are what separate your goals from your dreams. Dreams don’t have to come true, they are things you expect to happen to you. Goals are followed by action and they are a materialization of what you plan to do. It’s not enough to intend to finish that report, do those taxes, bake those cookies, or write that story.

So often we have other people affected by our intentions, this motivates us to complete the task. You don’t expect your boss, friend, school, or family to understand that you intended to do it but didn’t. Your intentions are part of a bigger picture, a relay race with someone at the end to pass the baton to (the completed goal). Unfortunately for many beginning writers it’s more of a marathon with a lot of personal battles along the way, a solo journey with a lot of personal satisfaction at the end. At the end it is you full of pride and joy, your manuscript/article, and the new intention to get published. How, when it is just you, do you turn your intentions into actual results?

One great way is a blog like this, which works to give you the tools to focus and find the right routine to meet your goals. You are part of an environment where you don’t have to feel alone. You can train and run your marathon with people just like you.

An often overlooked but vital tool for getting results is the evaluation process. You have a goal, you have a plan, but if you don’t track your progress and make adjustments, you may have a very big gap between what you intended to accomplish and what actually got accomplished. Now is not the time to let yourself down.

I really do think that the secret to your success is going to be found in the time to take to evaluate your progress and compare the final result with your intended target. It may seem unnecessary or a waste of time, but you are investing in long term solutions. You are giving yourself the tools to streamline and improve the process.

Evaluating as you go will help you see circumstances that need adjusting for, allow you to keep people updated on your progress and reward yourself for exceeding expectations. When you have your plan broken down to measurable elements you can track your progress. By making adjustments as you go, you are more likely to have your intended results line up with your actual results. You won’t be shocked by discrepancies and you’ll have a framework that is repeatable. That is vital. How amazing to be able to have created a system that you can comfortably repeat. Success to the end.

Evaluating the final results is just as crucial. Don’t skip this step. Yes you’re tired, anxious, and glad it’s all over, but until you look at the process with hindsight it’s not really over. This step is important to ensuring you understand what went right and what went wrong. You will need this information to improve the results and tighten the gap between your intentions and actuality the next time you map out your goals. This is your chance to begin the next project with hindsight, to pull out your final evaluation on your last project and factor in the things that worked and didn’t work.

The evaluation process is a vital tool to creating a system that is manageable, enjoyable, and successful. Give yourself the time to take your best intentions and turn them into a successful actuality.

 Last week I talked about my SNAP plan from an Author MBA class I took. This blog is a continuation on that, showing just how great the SNAP plan is. Quick recap: a SNAP plan shows an at-a-glance summary of your career vision and action plan. The action plan breaks your goals down into the following categories: production, marketing, professional development, and a wild card.

I’ve been working on updating my SNAP plan. I have to update the plan often because I’m still learning how long it takes to do certain tasks, like revising a NaNoWriMo novel (which Jordan E. Rosenfeld, author of the new Writer’s Digest book, Make a Scene, is going to help us do in January!)

So here’s what I talk myself through:

Start with the big idea. What do you want to get done by the end of the year? At Author MBA this is called your One-Year Intentions. In Stephanie’s blog on Monday she talked about your one main objective. What one thing do you want to get done this year?

Let’s say you kind of know what you want to do in the new year. You have a vague dream, but it depends on other events not in your control. You have a manuscript under consideration. If the editor takes it, your writing goals will switch to plan B. If the editor passes, you continue on with plan A.

Your plan A always involves the events you can control. The books you write. The article ideas you develop. The queries you send out.

Plan B is kind of the dream plan; the events outside of your control. This is when all your hard work pays off and you are going to be published. Or your published book is going to get a big-budget marketing campaign. Or….[fill in your wild card.]

In the SNAP plan outline, Plan B could fall under a Wild Card goal. In the past, my Wild Card has merely been another goal I wanted to achieve. But as I look ahead, I think the timing is right that I need to have a different plan for a Wild Card—a response to an event not under my control (like signing with an agent or selling a book to an editor.)

If you are like me, you are prepared for the “no’s.” We’re told every step of the way to expect rejection and keep pressing forward. But are you prepared for a “yes?” What do you do next when you get the yes? Panic, LOL? Or take a look at your business plan to see what you have already thought out?

We hope you have a blessed and peace-filled holiday, and a brilliant new year!

God bless you!   

Day by day, I may choose to lower my daily writing goal if my husband is home sick. (I can tell you, my goal is definitely lowered if I am home sick!) I increase my daily goals when on a writing retreat. And I try to meet the long-term totals monthly, quarterly and annually by catching up on good days.

I’m a planner, so when I make my goals for the new year, I am looking at all the times I know I’ll be out of town, all the holidays and other occasions I know I’m going to want to spend with family and friends, and anything else I know is coming. In 2009, I am moving to the other side of the world! My husband will be working on Happy Feet 2 in Sydney, Australia, so not only do I have to plan around moving, I have to plan around feeling like I’m on permanent vacation!

What is on your schedule next year? What “normal” things and what one-time events (a wedding?) do you have to plan your writing around? If you make goals that are specific and have a time limit, you can find a sense of accomplishment and success. And if you look at it as a long-term flexible process, you can continually adjust your goals up or down as you need to in order to continue in a mindset of success and not failure. (This is easier said than done, but keep trying!)

I also try to evaluate which goals I want to have a ceiling and/or a floor. For instance, starting in January I’m going to try a new way to get more writing done, writing all day three days a week. (I find it difficult to stop what I’m doing and move on to something else, so I’m going to try this new system. If it doesn’t work, I’ll go back to my half day, five days a week schedule and look for other ways to make it work for me.) So I’ll have a floor of three days of writing a week, and a ceiling of six days a week.

I promised last week that I would commit to my 2009 goals here today. Eeek! Asking myself the questions above, I decided I’m confident and a little nervous, and I want the reward of finishing a couple of books as well as the carrot of taking time off to enjoy the move. So -

Finish 1 category romance and send it out by April 30, 2009
Finish a second category romance and send it out by December 15, 2009
Finish the rewrite on my single title and send it out by December 15, 2009

I’ll be moving in July, so this schedule gives me enough time to write and get all my “life” stuff done. I’ll reevaluate my goals on those dates and/or when I finish those books. If I finish early, I may want to add another writing goal. If I find myself pressed for time because of the move, I may want to extend the dates. Either way, the more I plan for success and set myself up for success, the more likely I will be successful!

What about you? What are your goals for the new year?