Novel Writing – My Process: Plotting

In a discussion of Stephen King’s book On Writing, he claims he doesn’t see the value in plotting. This is what I had to say on the subject on the eve of the 2014 NaNoWriMo:

Whenever I write a short story, I often envision it as a single scene or chapter with a single point of view. When I scaled that up to writing a novel, I treat each scene/chapter as a separate short story, giving it a beginning, a middle, and an end. To find those scenes, I usually start at the end, then work my way backwards to figure out what scenes I need to get to that conclusion; my first scene is often the hardest to decide upon: what is the perfect spot to jump into the story? I also imagine specific scenes – money shots – to act as way points to work toward while filling in all of the missing pieces.

Filed under: Creativity, Existentialism, Literarian Tagged: Kevin A. Ranson, My Process, nanowrimo, Novel Writing, On Writing, plotting, Stephen King