September 12 – Plot It Out: Brainstorming, Plotting, and Getting Unstuck

Presented by Candi Scott

We all have that one story idea we can’t seem to flesh out — or in my case, more notebooks full of ideas than I’ll ever live long enough to write.

Over the years I’ve built a whole system for cracking those ideas open: phone calls with writing friends (we call them plot calls), plot luck lunches with my local chapter, HODFW, and a stack of go-to techniques I return to again and again. Plotting and brainstorming are hands-down my favorite part of the creative process, and in this workshop I’m handing over everything that works.

We’ll cover:

• Starting from nothing — mind maps, free writing, and list making to get the ideas flowing
• Starting from stuck — the What If? method, plus a set of basic questions that dig into your character’s motives and your story’s central conflict
• Starting from the end — reverse outlining, working backward from a scene to make the rest of the story fit

Plotter or pantser, you’re welcome here. There’s no one right way to build a book, and you’ll leave with more than one way to try.

Bring your stickiest plot problem. We’ll do rapid-fire plotting live in the workshop — and there’s a good chance you’ll walk out with it solved.

AUTHOR BIO:

Candi Scott is the super spicy pen name for award winning author Leslie Scott. She’s been writing and plotting for as long as she remembers. With over a dozen books under her belt and more than a dozen coming down the pipeline, she takes her plotting very, very seriously. Most of the time. 

The craft corner at the September 12 meeting will be Goal, Motivation, and Conflict, by Ella Sheridan

Next month:

Field Notes from NINC: What the Pros Are Talking About Right Now presented by authors Lynn Raye Harris and Linda Winstead Jones.