Andrea asked Laura Ellen Scott:

To what degree do you plot your novels in advance? Do you use any special tools? If I missed the answer in your blog, feel free to point me to it.

Laura Ellen Scott I use scrivener to draft, but I don't really use the tools it provides for organization, research, etc. I have a big white board in my office and multiple colored markers--that's where I sketch out the major plot points and general movement of the story. Colors=timelines, which was crucial for The Juliet.

The finer grain complexity mostly comes from two things that sort of self-populate. 1: knowing that every character--no matter how minor--will return to do important work (even if I don't know what that is), and 2: giving every character --no matter how minor--a secret. That secret is often tied to the character name, for some reason.

Sounds smarter and more aware than it actually is/was. I've always worked this way, but I only recently realized what I was doing.

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