Writing diary – Plotting
Spoiler alert !!… if you have not read The Agathon yet and don’t want to know plot details then skip this blog.
Sticky notes are great, but eventually you have an apartment full of them all over the walls so it becomes problematic. Not only that, but the order in which they are placed becomes a nightmare. Lessons learned from book 1. What I find really helpful is starting out with a simple notebook and jotting every single possible idea down in no particular order. This can take weeks or months but every writer knows that if you don’t put those thoughts down on paper when they pop into your head, they could be lost forever. 3am tends to be a strange idea generating hour for me, so a notepad by the bed for sleepy plot ideas works wonders. I then try to visualise these ideas on either a blackboard or white board and try to put them all in a chronological order. The meat, as it where, is yet to come but the outlined major plot points for acts 1-3 should be written in big black writing on a board so that you have something to work with. For example here is how book 1 was laid out.
Act 1 – World building : In Sci Fi you have to establish certain facts about where and when your characters are living. So what I tried to do early on was establish this by SHOWING, not TELLING. I’ll talk more about showing and telling in a later blog. So here is what we learn in the first act.
Humans live on Mars
The year is 2339
There is an ancient signal being transmitted to Earth that the humans cannot decode.
Carrie has abilities (she is telepathic and is manifesting electrical impulses from her hands)
Carrie works with Doctor Tyrone Tyrell in the observatory on Mars
There is a Monolith on the orbiting moon Phobos which is being used to amplify the signal.
Carrie’s mother died when she was very young
There is black organic substance found in a cave on Mars that liquifies organic material on contact
It is communicating with Carrie
Carrie’s father is commander of the human colony on Mars.
The Agathon is the first faster than light ship every built and is under construction in orbit around Mars.
There is a change in the signal and a powerful Gamma ray destroys the Earth
A large chunk of the Earth is on a collision course with Mars
The black organic liquid is brought on board The Agathon
Act 2 –
With the Earth destroyed, the surviving humans board two space stations and, along with a handful of transport vessels, sets a course away from the debris field
There is a lottery. The winners of which board the Agathon and set a course for the origin of the signal.
There is an explosion on board The Agathon and they set down on a planet to make repairs.
They discover an ancient artefact which gives them clues as to the origin of the signal makers.
They discover that there has been a malfunction in the FTL drive causing a space time distortion which has slowed time to a point where they have jumped 1000 years into the future.
They set a course for what they think is the Signal makers world
Act 3 –
They discover what they think is a planet
The planet attacks the ship making it crash land.
They investigate and discover the planet is artificial
The Black substance attacks Tyrell and enters his body taking over his mind
The machine planet is alive and captures Carrie’s father
It kills and replicates one of the crew who then tries to destroy the ship
Carrie rescues her father and does battle with the alien machine using her newly honed electrical abilities.
The ship escapes using their FTL drive at the last minute.
Okay so that’s a rough outline of the major plot points. There is no real in depth look as character motivation yet as that is handled at the character creation stage. I use Scrivner to map out character traits and try to incorporate those traits within the story.
Plotting gives you a basic A-B-C look at where you want the book to go and while it should not entirely dictate the structure of your book it lets you follow a path rather than writing blind.
