Planning, outlining, plotting, however you call it, is usually presented as something that happens at a high level, at the level of whole-story arcs, whether for characters or for plot. That's fine. I do that, and plenty of folks here have talked about how that works (or doesn't) for them. But there's a lower-level sort of planning--call it scene-level, though it's not always that. I've been fiddling with that lately and thought I'd share, mostly to elicit other perspectives and experiences. (sometimes I picture Scribes as a tribe gathering around the village fire, after we've all come back from forest and field, to share what we saw and learned there)
Here's a specific. In my WIP I have a dozen wizards in a tower. (I know; serious management problem) My lead characters enter this tower pretending to be there on Official Business. Fairly quickly, a murder is discovered by the MCs.
Now, the discovery could happen before or after the MCs meet the wizards. The MCs could meet all the wizards at once, or it could be done piecemeal. The discovery could happen in this room or that one. One or more wizards might be present at the discovery, or they might come in later.
IOW, lots of plot possibilities here. The question is, how does Author decide?
I've tried planning, but usually (as in this case) I wind up with a list of possibilities rather than an actual outline. If I choose This, then That must happen and This Other cannot happen. Reshuffle endlessly. I have not seen anything in all the planning/outlining books that give useful guidance here. This has little to do with three-act structure or journeys by heroes. It's more practical.
And that's where I might have something useful to say. Auditions. Yep. I start to lay out scenarios. A few, if I'm lucky, I dismiss at once. They don't even get past the front office. Don't call us, we'll call you. Others I spin out in my head, imagining if the murder happened, say, in the basement, how would the logistics work? Would any of the wizards wander down there by chance, for example?
Eventually, I wind up actually writing out the scene. If lucky, I hit close to the mark on the first try, and I can let the scene go to completion, let the consequences spin out, and be confident I can adjust during edit. In other cases, it just isn't working and I have to set it aside (I never toss them out) and work on another approach. Very often, practical considerations loom large.
For example, MCs find a body. What do they do? They might go straight to the wizards (one or more) to report. They might try to keep it quiet, for some reason. The path I chose was for my MCs to want to get the heck out as quick as they could, but they run right into a couple of wizards and have to keep up their pretense of Officials investigating. That feels right because it's Heroes want something and don't get it. Where does this happen? Just outside the room. Which now makes me have to think about why the wizards just happen to be there. Are my heroes being followed? Sure, why not? Wizards are a suspicious bunch. Which opens room for a confrontation. I can't have too many wizards present because it's a hallway. Not practical. Which now means we go back for some sort of report to the group.
I honestly don't see any way I could have plotted that before even beginning the book. I have to be down on the ground, actually writing, thinking about next scenes but also about scenes three chapters ago and six chapters ahead. About character relationships and behaviors. And that, too, I'm not sure I could plot. How does my lead character behave around a well-educated, powerful wizard? Why would I even be thinking about that before the scene in the hallway?
For me, it really does come down to auditions, to trying out different approaches to the same scene, letting practical considerations--everything from blocking to costume to character history--factor into the action. Any director knows, you can't really plan out that sword fight without getting your actors on stage with real sticks.
Sometimes, feeling like you don't have the connecting scenes for your story amounts to nothing more than the fact that you haven't run the auditions yet.
Here's a specific. In my WIP I have a dozen wizards in a tower. (I know; serious management problem) My lead characters enter this tower pretending to be there on Official Business. Fairly quickly, a murder is discovered by the MCs.
Now, the discovery could happen before or after the MCs meet the wizards. The MCs could meet all the wizards at once, or it could be done piecemeal. The discovery could happen in this room or that one. One or more wizards might be present at the discovery, or they might come in later.
IOW, lots of plot possibilities here. The question is, how does Author decide?
I've tried planning, but usually (as in this case) I wind up with a list of possibilities rather than an actual outline. If I choose This, then That must happen and This Other cannot happen. Reshuffle endlessly. I have not seen anything in all the planning/outlining books that give useful guidance here. This has little to do with three-act structure or journeys by heroes. It's more practical.
And that's where I might have something useful to say. Auditions. Yep. I start to lay out scenarios. A few, if I'm lucky, I dismiss at once. They don't even get past the front office. Don't call us, we'll call you. Others I spin out in my head, imagining if the murder happened, say, in the basement, how would the logistics work? Would any of the wizards wander down there by chance, for example?
Eventually, I wind up actually writing out the scene. If lucky, I hit close to the mark on the first try, and I can let the scene go to completion, let the consequences spin out, and be confident I can adjust during edit. In other cases, it just isn't working and I have to set it aside (I never toss them out) and work on another approach. Very often, practical considerations loom large.
For example, MCs find a body. What do they do? They might go straight to the wizards (one or more) to report. They might try to keep it quiet, for some reason. The path I chose was for my MCs to want to get the heck out as quick as they could, but they run right into a couple of wizards and have to keep up their pretense of Officials investigating. That feels right because it's Heroes want something and don't get it. Where does this happen? Just outside the room. Which now makes me have to think about why the wizards just happen to be there. Are my heroes being followed? Sure, why not? Wizards are a suspicious bunch. Which opens room for a confrontation. I can't have too many wizards present because it's a hallway. Not practical. Which now means we go back for some sort of report to the group.
I honestly don't see any way I could have plotted that before even beginning the book. I have to be down on the ground, actually writing, thinking about next scenes but also about scenes three chapters ago and six chapters ahead. About character relationships and behaviors. And that, too, I'm not sure I could plot. How does my lead character behave around a well-educated, powerful wizard? Why would I even be thinking about that before the scene in the hallway?
For me, it really does come down to auditions, to trying out different approaches to the same scene, letting practical considerations--everything from blocking to costume to character history--factor into the action. Any director knows, you can't really plan out that sword fight without getting your actors on stage with real sticks.
Sometimes, feeling like you don't have the connecting scenes for your story amounts to nothing more than the fact that you haven't run the auditions yet.