Tag: Novel Timeline

scrabble tiles on an orange background - most are face down, but four spell out the word plan
Posted in Before You Begin, Craft, The Nitty Gritty of Children's Writing, Tools

Preplanning and Beginning to Write Your Novel

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

Preplanning your novel. Some people outline, other writers just write. I’m the latter—a pantser with a plan. So, before we go any further, an explanation of the methods:

“To Pants or To Plot: Which One Is Best for Your Story?” by Nisha Tuli. This article has lots of references to other reading as well.

If you’re an outliner, I thought this article was helpful: “Outline Tools to Structure Your Children’s Book Plot.”

As a pantser, I still need to know some things before I can start actually writing. Whether I start with a character or plot, I need to know a little bit about who and what. I also like to have thoughts on where I think the story is going.

These posts from my archives might be of use before you write your novel.

Character related:

Making Friends: Character Development

Naming Characters – from Mary’s Notebook

Naming Your Character

The Right Number of Characters

Show Your Character’s Character

Viewpoint in Children’s Fiction – point of view – which can definitely change as you revise

Plot related:

Novel-sized Problem

Raise the stakes, honey!

Know what you’re writing:

So, You Want to Write a Book…

Theme and Premise

Writing a Novel? Where Does It Fit?

Especially for pantsers:

If you’re at the beginning stages of writing a novel, and don’t have an outline, how do you keep track of people, scenes, days of the week, etc.?

Here are some posts sharing thoughts on those topics:

Do You Have Style? aka Master Character Chart

The Story Ladder or Novel Timeline

I’d love to hear from others on how they plan and begin a novel. Feel free to share in comments.

Posted in Craft, The Nitty Gritty of Children's Writing

The Story Ladder or Novel Timeline

Posted on by Susan Uhlig

If writing an outline before you create your story is not for you, perhaps a story ladder would be a good choice.

Keeping track of where and when things happen can make sure you don’t end up having Monday happen twice in one week in your story. It also can help you strengthen endings and beginnings of chapters. Plus when you make a change in a story that necessitates a change earlier on, it makes it easier to find the appropriate scene or place.

You may want to write a few chapters before creating it. Or you may use it as a mini-outline to write from. Following are several samples.
story ladder
Going back over my story ladder for one novel, I added a column for main plot and subplot, which let me see how balanced the story was. I’ve also added codes or columns so I can see how often I mention a character trait–this helps me not forget some mannerism or habit that should be ongoing. Or perhaps it helps me keep track of something in the character’s setting which is important either to the plot or to the character.

Sometimes the summary shows me that not much happened in a chapter. I can then ask myself do I need this scene? Is it moving the story forward? Do I need to strengthen it or combine it with another chapter? Is it in the wrong place?

Page numbers and/or word count show the lengths of my chapters. If most of them are a consistent length, except for this one long one, perhaps I consider breaking it into two chapters.

Use a story ladder as a tool for what YOU need to keep track of in your story. For a mystery, you might want a column for clues, so you know when you’ve revealed what. If you’re writing a novel with multiple viewpoints, you may need a column to indicate whose viewpoint each chapter or section is in.

A story ladder or novel timeline can be helpful when you have to create a synopsis, too, since the basics are already gathered in one place.