Cameron Montague Taylor

Fantasy Author & Fiction Editor

save the cat

Planning the External Plot

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When I first started writing, I must have googled every single permutation of “how do I write a good book?” about a thousand times, only to find that many writers are close-lipped on the exact process they use to put that idea into words.

This post is dedicated to drawing pack the curtain on part of my writing and drafting process, in which I lay down the bones of the external plot structure. I can’t cover my whole planning process in a single post, so I’m keeping the focus narrow, here, but I hope it provides you with some inspo or food for thought.

I plan the external portion of my plot with a variety of tools—chiefly three-act (specifically drawn from Save the Cat Writes a Novel) and character-focused scene cards.

Some writers find structures like three-act too prescriptive for their tastes, or otherwise, don’t like using physical tools like beat sheets and scene cards in their pre-writing process. But when I’m writing and editing (either for myself or for a client), I lean heavily on tools like three-act as analytical frameworks to help me conceptualize the story and control its movement, tension, and pacing.

Before I delve into how I do this, I’d like to add a note for the pantsers in the crowd:

A note for the pantsers

(For those of you who haven’t heard the term before, a ‘pantser’ is a writer who does little to no planning before sitting down and starting to write. They often consider structural tools like three-act, scene cards, or outlining to be an impediment to the creative process.)

If you’re a dyed-in-the-wool punster who wants nothing to do with an outline, that is fine—but structural tools can still work for you! The trick is, instead of using beat sheets or scene cards prior to drafting, you’ll take them out and fill them in after you’ve already written your rough draft.

That way, your by-the-seat-of-the-pants creative process will remain intact—and you can use structural tools to load test the strength of your plot, arcs, and pacing in order to identify where and how to shift things around in revisions.

…and a note for the plotters

Here’s the thing, though:

Pantsers, you’re not alone. All of us have a little pantser in us, whether or not we realize it. The story we imagined in the very beginning isn’t necessarily the story that ends up on the page once we’re done writing. While I won’t say there’s a way to use beat sheets or scene cards wrong, I can say that it’s a mistake to hem yourself in so hard that you don’t listen to that niggling little voice telling you that something isn’t right about the connective tissue between acts, or the way the climax plays out, or the development of the romantic arc.

It is absolutely okay (and often necessary!) to take stock of the story at each major benchmark and think critically about whether the structure as it’s currently planned still works given what’s made it onto the page.

I frequently stop at the midpoint to assess my beat sheet, scene cards, and outline for the second half of the story… and often make major changes to bring my plan in line with a revised vision based on how the story actually played out as I was writing. This kind of flexibility is a good thing! It leaves us room for spontaneous creativity and those special, beautiful moments when something we didn’t plan ends up on page but works so heckin’ well we can’t help but keep it.

Without further ado…

How I use beat sheets and scene cards to structure my stories

If you’re unfamiliar with Save the Cat, I recommend picking up a copy at a local bookstore or library. You can learn more about it here.

Otherwise, here’s a free and short explanation of the beats.

A caveat: as I mentioned earlier, this isn’t my full planning process. By the time I start filling out beats, I’ve done a ton of pre-writing and have already figured out the rough shape of the protagonist’s growth arc (and likely, the growth arcs of the major supporting characters, too—especially if there’s a romance in the story). Character and romance arc planning is a post for another time.

Moving on:

Because I write character-first, I don’t start working on my external plot until I know where I want my characters to end up by the end of the story and have a vague idea of what needs to happen to get them there. Overall, I tweak the plot to fit the characters and their growth arcs—not the other way around.

If you’re not a character writer, this might not work for you! (But I recommend trying it! Character-first is fun ;))

Thus, by the time three-act / Save the Cat gets involved, I have fleshed-out characters and a bare-bones plot. Sometimes, I only know the general premise and have a vague idea of the conclusion with one or two specific images / sources of inspiration along the way.

To get that external plot in shape, I start by mapping out the major beats of my story.

Below is a list of three-act beats from Save the Cat. I’ve bolded the ones I consciously think about while in the planning phase:

Opening Image
Theme Stated
Set-up
Catalyst
Debate
Break into Two
B Story
Fun and Games
Midpoint
Bad Guys Close In
All Is Lost
Dark Night of the Soul
Break into Three
Finale
Final Image

Past the scaffolding for act one, which I try to lay down during this stage, the later story beats all have something in common: they’re the story’s major turning points.

Start with act one, fill in major turning points

I start planning the external plot by deciding upon an opening image because I already intrinsically understand the scene’s requirements; I’ve done enough character pre-work that I know exactly what struggles my protagonist is facing at the very beginning of the story. In fact, most of act one usually comes together quickly for me. I have a general idea of the external conflict my protagonist will face in the story, and the first act is devoted to forcing them to accept the call to action and decide how and why they’re going to set out to solve this external problem—and those hows and whys are intrinsically tied to the character work I’ve already done.

(In other words: the hows and whys march in tandem with that protagonist’s pre-story goals and motivations, all of which I’ve already decided upon.)

This takes me into the break to act two, at which point my ideas become hazier. To avoid getting bogged down in the weeds of the ‘fun and games’ beat, the next event I plan is the story’s midpoint.

When plotting the midpoint, I ask myself: what external event happens that, driven by the protagonist’s actions, causes them to reevaluate their goals and motivations for the rest of the story?

I tend to think of the midpoint as either a major victory (on the back of which the protagonist realizes the victory was hollow, pyrrhic, or has another similar oh NO moment that sends them scrambling) or a major defeat (after which the protagonist realizes what they’ve been missing all along and finally figures out what steps to take towards the climax).

Why do I plan the midpoint before either half of act two? Because the events of act two provide the framing context and structural support for that vital midpoint beat. Without first understanding how the story turns at the midpoint, I can’t understand what needs to brace it on either side.

Of course, there’s another major turning point at the end of act two / beginning of act three. This turning point encompasses the three major beats on either side of that doorway: All is Lost / Dark Night of the Soul / Break into Act Three.

In other words: what terrible event forces the protagonist to risk it all and finally, finally complete their growth arc? And, how does completing that growth arc give them the solution to the external plot problem?

I might have a general idea of what I want my climactic scenes to look like, but often, I’m missing concrete details at this stage. The next scene that I truly have a vision for is that final image. It’s a mirror of the opening image, it demonstrates the full range of my protagonist’s growth arc, and furthermore, it’s the (often happy) ending the events of the climax must engineer.

I can’t plot my climax until I understand how I want my story to end.

Once these major beats are down, I can start filling in the connective tissue that’ll get my characters from one point to the next. I do that using scene cards.

Using scene cards to fill in narrative beats

From Story Genius by Lisa Cron

While dreaming up the events that will bring my protagonist (and/or supporting cast) from one major plot event to another in a logical, authentic, and interesting way, I rely heavily on scene cards both to test and to flesh out my ideas. They help me map out my arcs and ensure the events of each scene 1) flow into one another; 2) impact what happens in the next scene; 3) are driven by my characters’ goals/motivations; 4) advance at least one vital story arc.

Sometimes, I use these cards for larger events or try/fail cycles just to make sure I have all my bases covered.

Whenever I’m using a scene card, I’ll fill out the boxes with as much detail as I can. What happens is a short summary of the event itself. This event should be protagonist-driven, and Consequence is the clear and external result of their actions.

Why it matters, Realization, and ‘and so’ are how the external plot interacts with the character arc. Why do these events matter to the character? What does the character realize while these external events unfold? What do they decide to do next after encountering the consequences of the past scene/sequence?

If you’re wondering what an example of this might look like… check it out:

Let’s say I’m writing a romantic thriller. My protagonist is Ana, an editorial intern struggling her way up the ladder in a major New York publishing house. The love interest is Loula, an aspiring ballet dancer who works part-time at her family’s diner to keep her finances in order while breaking into the industry. They end up at a bodega down the street from Loula’s family diner at the same time… just as it’s held up by a gunman who takes everyone inside hostage.

The scene in question starts before, but leads into the inciting incident where the gunman enters the bodega.

Ana is a pretty selfish character who’s a little bit of a scatterbrain. The scene begins when Ana decides to make a sandwich for lunch in her office’s communal kitchen. She goes into the fridge and realizes she’s forgotten to buy more sandwich pickles. She decides to make her sandwich anyway, ‘borrowing’ her coworker Jason’s pickles without asking (what happens). But Jason walks into the kitchen mid-sandwich-prep, catches her, and blows up at her for stealing (consequence).

Jason is a full-time employee and one of the editors Ana needs to work with on a daily basis. Not only that, but if she has any hope of turning her internship into a job, she can’t be known as a pickle stealer (why it matters). But perhaps, if she makes it up to Jason and regains his trust, she won’t doom her chances with this publishing house (realization). Thus, she decides to use the rest of her lunch break to run to the bodega on the corner and replace his pickles (and so).

The next scene would begin with Ana arriving at the bodega and frantically searching the aisles for the right brand of sandwich pickles—only for the gunman to enter and order everyone to get to the ground.

See what I did there?

Ana’s growth arc (from selfishness to selflessness, perhaps) will impact her actions, which in turn interacts with and shapes the events of the external plot, driving the conflict between major beats.

 This isn’t the whole picture

Beat sheets and scene cards are only one aspect of my story-planning process; as with all writing tools, I use them in conjunction with a smorgasbord of tricks I’ve picked up along the way in order to end up with a cohesive narrative by the end. As tools, though, they help me plan my story in a way that ensures I’m not missing major connective tissue between plot points, keeping narrative tension and traction high by ensuring the events of the story connect to one another with consistent, forward-driving momentum.

I don’t expect this method to work for you the way it does for me! We’re all unique, and so are our processes. But I think that, as writers, we hunger for resources from other writers that lay out this is exactly how I do what I do, that way we can learn, experiment, and grow from our peers.

If you take anything from this post, I hope it’s this: every writer has a method that works for them—one they’ve developed after writing story after story. This happens to be what works for me, which doesn’t mean it’s The Way to write. Try it out. Take what you can from the process. Use what nuggets and tidbits help, and discard the rest.

And tag me in any posts you make about your own process so I can do the same ;).

Worldbuilder’s Disease: Writer’s Block

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Welcome to my series on worldbuilder’s disease: a Sci-Fi/Fantasy problem in which aspiring writers end up with notebooks full of history/backstory, but no drafted words on the page. This is the third post in the series – click to check out the first and second posts.

Last week, I wrote about draft-blocked and plot-blocked processes and how to overcome them to get a draft out. This week, we’ll look at strategies for overcoming revision-related blocks. While revision-blocked writing isn’t unique to the SFF landscape, it can certainly come as a result of worldbuilder’s disease, so I’ve included it in this series.

Revision-blocked writers come in two different flavors:

  1. The structure-blocked writer, and
  2. The perfection-blocked writer.

Structure-blocked writers

Structure-blocked writers start their projects with boundless enthusiasm, churn through the first several chapters of their manuscript, then abruptly lose interest (or: find it impossible to continue).

A close cousin of the plot-blocked writer, many structure-blocked writers don’t know where to go with their story after the opening chapters – or find everything between the opening and the ending too boring to write.

SB writers tend to either 1) abandon their project in favor of a shiny new WIP (work-in-progress), or return to the beginning and fuss, fuss, fuss with their initial chapters.

I like to think of SB writers as folks who have a partially-assembled piece of Ikea furniture sitting in the corner of their living room. A bag of all the spare bits and pieces they couldn’t figure out how to fit into the furniture – let’s call it a bookshelf – sit in a bag on top.

How do we go from a structural disaster to an immaculate Kallax unit?

By reading the directions. Or, to zoom out of this weird furniture metaphor and apply it to our writing: by having a roadmap.

Structure-blocked writers often start writing with an idea for the beginning, an end, and an empty wasteland of a middle. This is a plot-structure problem. In order to fix it, we need a roadmap.

You may say, “But Cee, I hate plotting!”

That’s fine! Remember, plotterßàpantser is a wide spectrum. Plotting work =/= scene level outlines if you don’t want it to.

If you’re a structure-blocked writer who needs to find a workable way to build a scaffold for the sagging middle of your novel, here are two different techniques to try. Each involves a different level of pre-plotting intensity to help you get past the black hole that opens up the moment you draft chapter four.

  • Low-intensity plotting: flashlight/waypost method

If plotting sucks the life out of you, try the flashlight/waypost method (aka Plotting Lite).

The flashlight method = working towards the end.

Working towards the end means taking a look at the current drafted chapters and asking ‘ok, given what I’ve already got on the page, what interesting thing can I make happen next?’

Or, as some authors put it, “how can I leave the most blood on the floor?”

When you’re stuck and all of the options you come up with seem boring, that’s when you want to wreck your character’s life. Throw them an unhittable curve ball. Burn down their house. (Sometimes literally.)

‘Boring’ comes from a dearth of compelling conflict – so create some. Think of an event (a breakup, a death, a horrible loss) that will propel the character forward and give them something to fight for/against/toward.

It may yet be unclear how that conflict will fit into the greater narrative, but hey, that’s why flashlight-method writers are often called “discovery” writers.

You’ll think of something.

And even if it winds up being the wrong turn, or a scene you need to tweak for it to sit right – it got you writing, didn’t it? You can fix wrong turns. You can’t fix a blank page.

The waypost method = working towards the middle.

Working towards the middle is the same concept, but turned on its head. Instead of putting blood on the floor right away, you try to find the mid-point between the last chapter you have drafted and the next major event set in stone in your book.

This might very well be the climax/ending. If that’s the case, you want to focus on the midpoint.

(Side-note: I absolutely swear by the midpoint as one of the most, if not *the* most, important parts of a book. If you dread the middle, try to think of it as an opportunity instead of a chore.)

What huge event happens halfway through your novel? The midpoint clarifies and raises the stakes, changes the game for the protagonist, and adds a plot twist to show the protagonist the true nature of the enemy they’re facing.

What kind of event would do that?

Once you have that event, cut the story in half again – go between the last chapter you wrote and the midpoint. What has to happen halfway between those two points to get the characters to the Midpoint Event?

Then cut it in half again, and again, and again – until you have a roadmap of how to get yourself to the halfway mark. These are your major plot points. Instead of writing into a sagging, soggy void, you can write your way from waypost to waypost, adding more as necessary whenever you come upon a big blank chunk of time.

To summarize:

Pros: flashlight/waypost will get you writing! It’s better for pantsers and plantsers who find the will to write sucked out of them when adhering to a strict plotting structure. Best for those who enjoy the editing and revisions process, because…

Cons: The end result could need a lot of revision.

Caveats: It’s still possible to get stuck! In that case, it’s safe to assume the story has taken a wrong turn somewhere. This could require zooming out and looking at the story structure with a plotting, revisionist eye to spot what’s tripping up the plot.

  • High intensity plotting: aka using beat sheets and story structure

If you’re a plotter (or if you’ve tried pantsing, but it doesn’t work for you), the best way to unstick yourself is to have a roadmap. In other words, you need to dust off the instructions that came with your Kallax unit and use them for assembly.

Many writers operate under the misconception that story structure – and adhering to it – will leave you with a cookie-cutter story that’s ‘been done’ before. That’s not true! Creative problem-solving can always lead you to an original, fresh take. The secret to writing with a structure is to use each ‘beat’ in the structure as an opportunity to put a twist into your story.

There are many different kinds of story structure, but I use (and recommend) three-act as a fantastic jumping-off point.

Earlier in my writing journey, I came across a breakdown of three-act by Paranormal Romance author Jami Gold. I don’t write ParaRo, but her blog (and description of structure) helped immeasurably when I was slogging through early drafts of my first books. She also offers downloadable beat sheets that you can use to workshop your books.

If you’re interested in a detailed dig into three-act, though, I cannot recommend Save the Cat Writes a Novel by Jessica Brody enough. STC is a cornerstone of how I conceptualize story structure. Although it’s not the only resource I use to plot my work, Brody’s book helps me create the scaffold for everything I write.

I’m a self-identified plotter, so I do all of my scaffolding as pre-work before I get writing. That said, books are wild things, and tend to go off-script on us. When that happens, I often end up running my current draft back through beat sheets (or STC exercises and worksheets) to diagnose my story structure problems.

Beat sheets (and a familiarity with story structure in general) can help you reverse-engineer almost anything: a character arc, a relationship arc, an external plot, a climax sequence, a solid midpoint. Most importantly, it can help you figure out why you have pacing issues (huge for me!), or even (!!!) why you’re struggling to get past chapter four.

Story-structure is a big-picture, front-loaded cousin of the flashlight/waypost method. It will help you pinpoint each place a Major Event must occur within your writing, and guide you as you work out what the best event could be to keep your story moving in the direction you want.

Early in my writing life, I used to get blocked four to six chapters in all the time. I was a structure-blocked writer: I pushed through the conflict and worldbuilding exposition in the first chapters, then stared at the yawning void between there and the climax with no idea how to make it through. Three-act structure helped me map the space between the beginning and the end, creating interesting conflict, twists, and turns along the way.

As soon as I knew where those twists and turns were, the fire to write always reignited for me. Suddenly, instead of having to find a way to get through 50k to reach the climax, I only needed to write 2k to get to the next major plot event – and the way was so much clearer.

So… what if you’ve picked a method (plotting, pantsing) that works for you, hammered out a structure… and still can’t get past those first few chapters?

You might be a perfection-blocked writer.

Perfection-blocked writers

A close cousin to the draft-blocked writer, perfection-blocked writers may have made it out of the draft-blocked stage only to get hung up four or five chapters in. Why? Although perfection-blocked writers are super excited to write their story (and know exactly what they want to put down on paper!), they can’t get past their perception of the quality of their early chapters.

In other words: they think their first chapters suck, and it prevents them from moving past the beginning to continue the draft.

Instead of writing their way to the middle and end they’re so excited about, perfection-blocked writers will redraft, and redraft, and redraft the beginning. They feel that they can’t move past the beginning until it’s perfect. Of course, once they reach the end of the beginning, something else is wrong with it – or perhaps they draft chapter six only to realize it creates a plot hole in chapter two.

Back they go to fix it, never making it to chapter seven, never reaching the end.

Many of the perfection-blocked writers I know are parts of writing groups or critique circles. They send the same chapter (or series of chapters) in over and over, returning to the drawing board with their feedback to redraft instead of moving forward.

Here’s the problem, though:

It’s impossible to know what the perfect beginning is until you’ve written the end.

We can hazard good guesses at it based on our story structure, of course, but even our esteemed critique partners might give feedback that misses the mark because they’re looking only at one chapter and not at a complete story.

No matter how stringent a plotter you are, the story will change between chapter one and The End by the time you get there, often necessitating a different first chapter.

Think of those early chapters as placeholders – your best guess at what groundwork you need to lay for the rest of the book to stand upright. It’s normal to need more foundation work after laying the roof. That may seem counter-intuitive (we never build houses on broken foundations!), but it’s a fundamental truth that’s worth swallowing about writing fiction, otherwise you’ll never build anything but a foundation.

All that said, perfection-blocks can battle with our logical understanding of story structure, compelling us to keep rewriting our beginning.

Here are a few tools that can help you manage your inner perfectionist while holding you back from redrafting the beginning ad infinitum.

  • Find a way to organize and structure the critique you’re receiving.

This could be critique you’ve given yourself (sudden realizations! Changes in the plot! Lightning bolts of inspiration!) or crit from others. Either way, part of the compulsion to go back and edit the beginning comes from suddenly knowing what to fix and being afraid to forget how to fix it.

Different writers organize and retain this information in different ways. You could use a writing notebook with separate sheets of paper for each scene, listing changes by hand. (I recommend disc binders for this – they’re my personal favorite – but any system that functions for you will do.)

You could use an excel spreadsheet that helps track scenes, chapters, arcs, characters, or any number of data points through time, letting you take notes on how those aspects of your book develop (and what needs to change when you enter revisions).

You could copy your draft into an entirely new document – one only meant for future edits – and compile inline comments from crit buddies (or your own critical brain!) for later review.

The most important thing is to have your information and ideas safe, organized, and ready for when it’s time to start that draft. That way, you don’t feel the need to hold every single scrap of revisions information in your head while you’re writing.

  • Find a different writing group.

If you’re receiving critique on early chapters that jumpstarts your perfectionist brain and makes it impossible not to go back and make changes… you may need to reconsider membership in your writer’s group.

I know several amazing, successful writers who absolutely cannot show early chapters to anyone – who won’t show anything but a full first draft to their alpha and beta readers. Why? Because as soon as they receive crit, or explain later events of the story to critters in order to facilitate crit, they lose all motivation to complete the draft.

Critique and writer’s support groups are amazing ways to build connections and make friends, but don’t feel obligated to get your early chapters critiqued before you’ve gotten to a comfortable place in your work. Some writers can take crit on half-baked books. Others can’t – and that’s okay! Figure out where you fall on that spectrum and take the necessary steps to protect yourself and your work.

There are writer’s communities based on socialization, craft chat, and support, too – not just critique exchanges. Plenty have popped up on discord that are searchable through social media sites like twitter or tumblr. NaNoWriMo also has a forums section that gets busy in April, July, and November, but has activity all year round.

  • Ignore the processes of writers who don’t have this problem.

I’m not (and never have been) a perfection-blocked writer. If you ever see me post about my drafting and editing process… ignore me.

Writing advice is never one-size-fits-all – hence the myriad debates in the writersphere about The Definitive Way to Write Things (a debate I’d love to see die one day, but alas, I suspect that day isn’t forthcoming). Among those debates: whether or not a writer should go back and make changes to the manuscript during draft one.

There are many writers (myself included) who hit a particular milestone in their story structure (usually the midpoint or somewhere just past it) and go back to clean up the plot, foreshadowing, and character motivations/arcs in the first half of the book.

Do not let yourself get drawn in by their methods. These writers aren’t perfection-blocked writers. They don’t have the same temptation to rework, and rework, and rework those early chapters. Their methods will not work for you until you’ve broken your blocked habits and completed at least one (possibly several) manuscript drafts.

Scrutinize where your writing advice comes from (this blog included). Not every successful writer’s process will work for you. And certainly, beware of the temptation to use advice from non-perfection-blocked writers to justify continued tweaking.

Could this tweaking become a part of your process in the future? Perhaps. For now, however, it’s time to break a habit and get a draft on the page.

Up next week: craft and worldbuilder’s disease

Come join me next week for part four of my series on worldbuilder’s disease. I’ll break down the common problems worldbuilders run into when translating their worlds into draft form: exposition, info-dumping, and backwards causal chains between setting and character.

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