Plotting your novel: a guide for dummies

Illustration by Harriet Lee-Merrion

Before you get pissed at me for calling you a dummy, know this.I'm the first dummy here, and this post is largely me shouting at myself. LOUDLY.It turns out that for the last four years of writing full-time I had no idea how to plot and did it by my gut, which sometimes led me out the other end (Rosehead, Irkadura, Janna), and sometimes not quite (Siren Suicides, The Badlings, TUBE). It was random. If I wrote for too long (Siren Suicides), I got lost in...