Are We There Yet? Plot Your Roadmaps.

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I’ve written before about having a plan. It’s important to have at least some sort of a plan for marketing, promotion, and also writing. I’ve been both a seat-of-the-pants writer and also an outliner when it comes to my manuscripts. I strongly recommend some kind of written track to help you get from the beginning of the story and to the end; having an outline, or at least some sort of well-rounded chapter summary will help immensely when you are editing.

This week we are talking about Choose Your Own Adventure stories. Perhaps this is the most important kind of story to have a map for your plot arcs. I read a great article recently about building a story map for CYOA storylines. As a teenage fan of them, I’d always wanted to write a CYOA… and maybe I will do just that in the near future.

In the meanwhile, I’d recommend that you check out this interesting article over here:

http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/cyoa-choose-your-own-adventure-maps

My advice for this week is to play with maps that trace out the story plot arcs. It helps keep your main focus pointed and allows you to interweave your subplots seamlessly around the primary arc and then tied them altogether in a succinct way that will have greater impact to your reader. It will also let you know where you are in your story progression so you can properly build a climax and denouement, etc.

Whatever works for you is great–just make sure that it actually works and your not just avoiding the extra work of writing an outline (but, like I always say–writers write… so when I’m playing with my thoughts and putting them on paper so I remember my ideas it’s just a matter of reorganizing them into an outline, anyway). I’ve found it’s easier and quicker to get where I’m going when I know the way there.