How To Do A Plotting Mix

[You can watch a video of this post here.]

 As promised, today I will be writing about how to mix and use both the outlining and organic writing techniques together.  I must apologise first. I will be showing you two blurry photos because I did not take proper photographs of the progress of the poster above. They are just screen shots of my first and second tips video.

The Idea

Last month I put this thing up in my first video: How to know if you have a great idea. This is how I think the premise of my story will look like if it was a poster. I have a general idea of what kind of story I want to tell. If I like what I see, I will write a short fairy-tale about it.

I do not treat this as the spine of the story though. Sometimes it is, but most times it is the prompter. In this case, because the idea is 'I love stories', it will make me think of centring my story around a bookshop, library, or theatre. The place you pick is important, because it will define what kind of character you will have. 

• Bookshops - Readers are treated as customers. Books with high sales volume are lined prominently. Less popular books are in the lower shelves or bargain bin.
• Library - Readers are treated as information seekers. Books are arranged alphabetically, not by popularity.
• Theatre - Audience can interact between acts. There is stress and high drama behind the curtains

Outlining With A Fairy Tale

So here is how I think the short fairy-tale helps me. I get to see what is going on, and who are the main characters that will make the story work. Notice that I am using the jungle as the 'cultural' background. The fairy-tale for this poster might sound something like this. 

Once upon a time there was a chameleon who thought that she was the most beautiful green animal in the jungle. Then one day, at the theatre, a young caterpillar came and delighted the cat. Her green was just as bright as Chameleon's, but she had yellow and red dots. Almost everyone in the audience, even Goose, was captivated by those dots. Only Squirrel was watching the show. Grasshopper was disappointed by the lack of review afterwards. She thought that the lack of interest was because her play was rubbish. The ants thought that they failed as actors. Squirrel tried to persuade them to keep the theatre going but Grasshopper was too depressed to continue. So she went away. Chameleon became sad and turned brown: Cat was gone and the theatre had closed. Then Caterpillar went into her cocoon. She came out a black butterfly with white spots. Cat was disappointed, and he tried to persuade Chameleon to again be the green that he loved so much. Chameleon turned away from him. She no longer needed anyone to tell her what colour she should be. She was ready to make her own decision for herself.

After I write out the tale, I will set it aside for a week or so. There are three scenarios here when I reread the story.

• If I still like what I read, I will start writing it in earnest. 
• If I think the story is not good enough but still has promise, I will rewrite it and repeat the process. 
• If I don't like it after I reread it, I will not start work on it at all. 

This as far as I will go for outlining.

Writing With Another Writer

If, however, you are working with another writer, I really recommend that you continue to do as much outlining as you can. This way you can plan how events will come together, how characters will change, what emotional objects must be mentioned and in which scene it must be mentioned in.

Outlining is being prepared and having control over the story. It is like having an hour by hour itinerary of your travel plans. This way, if one of you lose your thread, you can always get to the next 'meeting' point quickly.

Writing Organically

Writing organically, is exactly as the name implies. You just let the story go where it wants to go. You let the characters do what is natural for them to do. You have very little control over the story. It is like letting a garden grow wild. However, if you have done your simple outline properly, you will still have some control over the story.

For me, the trick to sticking with the original outline I have written is to make sure that the story has a strong climax and a satisfying ending. This way I will be driven to move everything to that ending. If I happen to come up with a crazy new idea in the middle of the story, I will put it in my ideas pile and set it aside for a new story. (That's my secret for writing so much.) You can introduce an unplanned strong character or important event in the story, but you should not let them grow with the other characters you have planned because it will mess up the trajectory of your story.

But of course sometimes you just get bored in the middle of your writing. This happens to me whenever I try to write in a way that is unnatural for me. My last book, Fairy Con, was supposed to be a contemporary detective mystery. But I ended up putting in Iban folklore characters, like Ini Andan the Shaman goddess. So now it is a fantasy mystery.

No One Technique Is Perfect

Have I ever experienced problems with the organic writing technique? Yes, plenty of time. Because anything is possible. I have a fluid memory, so I tend to forget events, names, and places that I have written into the story. Or I will remember them differently. Readers were usually surprised when they described something in my book and I said, "Is that so?" Honestly, I forgot.

This is very bad when I am in the middle of writing a story. What I do now, is keep a journal to track all the events and characters that turn up in my story. It has been super useful. I plan to show you my tracking journal in the next post. Please subscribe to get notification. And don't forget to share.

Start writing. Keep writing. Goodbye.