S1E24 Plot, but Inside Out
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This is a transcript of this episode. The full transcript is found on the show’s website.
Devin Davis: You know, there has been wind, there has been rain. There has been everything you can imagine. And so I'm hoping that my microphone doesn't pick it up because we have a deadline today on Writing in the Tiny House. Hello, hello, hello! And welcome back to the show. Welcome to Writing in the Tiny House. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy living in a tiny house who is here to tell you how to write that novel specifically. But we don't just pay attention only to novels. We pay attention to all books. It has been my experience that so many adults who work a nine to five and have a family also have a book idea in the back of their mind that they simply have not started writing.
[00:01:12] And I'm here to tell you that it is possible. And I am here to show you how it's done. So as far as announcements go, we are here and we are on our 24th episode. Isn't that so fun? I have been doing my darndest to kind of get ahead of things and it's a lot of work, friends. The podcast itself is a lot of work. I absolutely love it. And it brings me a lot of joy. But to get ahead of my publishing schedule and to give myself some room to breathe and stuff has taken a lot of effort.
[00:01:45] I don't really have a day where I can sit down and record like six episodes. That's not how it works. And so instead I've been doing a lot of interviews and I have been doing about two podcasts a week and becauseI have a patron community, I get to do an additional episode every month and that episode gets to be really good.
[00:02:07] So there's just a lot of recording and I simply do what I can in the time that I have. I don't have my boys every night. I am alone on most nights. And my goal has been to record two episodes a week and publish one. So with some time we're going to get that nice big cushion.
[00:02:28] In case, well, which is what I want that way if I need to take time off, the publishing schedule won't be interrupted. Or if something happens or if there's an emergency, then you, my friends, don't need to worry about some good additional content and neither do I. And that's good. It is good to have that.
[00:02:47] Additionally. So August is very soon, actually, August is this month. You CA it's this month, we are presently in August, as you can tell. And that means that we have three months to prepare for NaNoWriMo. So NaNoWriMo is basically when we get our writing idea and we map it out and we outline as much as we feel we need to. And we make a goal that in November we write 50,000 words of that project. Now in my life, 50,000 words does not make a novel. Even if you read the NaNoWriMo guidelines, they pretend that 50,000 is a novel. In most publishing standards, 50,000 is a novella, but 50,000 words in a month would be a huge step in the progress of anybody's book.
[00:03:59] So for the traditional debut novel, which should be at about a hundred thousand words, you would get halfway there. If you are already at like 40 to 50,000 words, you would finish the thing by the end of NaNoWriMo. And so that is what I am preparing to do. I want to have all of November's podcasts recorded in advance.
[00:04:24] November is going to be a little bit different just because that entire month is going to be a big push to 50,000 words. I currently have two works in progress that are half done. And so to get 50,000 more words is a big freaking deal. Even if between now and then I managed to finish one of them.
[00:04:44] There's always more to be written. And I have short story ideas that need to happen too. All the things. There are a million different ways to get to 50,000 words, even if it's not just in one manuscript. And so NaNoWriMo November is going to look a bit differently instead of just the informative episode content that I have done in many of these episodes, like the tips and tricks and whatever, in November, we're going to take a different approach just because I am inviting you, my listening community, to do NaNoWriMo with me, especially my patrons.
[00:05:24]So think of a project where you can do a big push to the end and let's nail it down in the month of November. But in November, we are going to have episodes on how to deal with stress. I know that one of them is going to be a guided meditation, just different things like that, ways to clear your head, ways to keep you going.
[00:05:46] And so it may not be related specifically to writing. It might be more related just to achieving goals and pushing through things that will stand in your way and different things like that. Starting a routine of whatever it might be. So that in November we can tackle our goals and push through to the end.
[00:06:11] In 30 days and that is amazing. So there's going to be a lot of that and preparing for it in October, we're going to have episodes on how to prepare for that type of a marathon. So that's what the content will look like in the fall. And we have three months leading up to that. So stay tuned. It is going to be awesome in November.
[00:06:37] It's going to be a little bit different and I will be posting updates on my personal progress on the Discord community and also on Instagram. So if you follow me on Instagram, you can see that. If you are not a part of the Discord community, you need to become a patron to do so. So go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse, and, there will be a giveaway, there will be a lot of back and forth on how to stay on track, on how to push through, on how to move forward. And so NaNoWriMo is a big goal this year. So let's do that right before the holiday season. It's going to be great.
[00:07:17] So anyway, onto the main body of this episode. I want to talk about how to structure plot. And do it from the inside out sort of. So the plot of a story can happen in many different ways. It is, especially if you're doing fiction and you are not modeling something with your fiction. A lot of people take an event. And through the inspiration of that event, they write a story. And so that story is inspired by events that actually happened.
[00:07:54] And so putting in the rising action and whatever else is a bit easier, just because everything that they're writing happened in some way already. If you are writing a book with a larger cast and a more complicated plot with several subplots, things get to happen a little bit differently.
[00:08:16] And so for something like a big epic, something where people go up against impossible odds and there's that really, really big finish at the end. And the stakes are like life or death or the death of a village or like life of death, of their loved ones or whatever else. That's what I mean by an epic.
[00:08:42] Sometimes what you can do is imagine, and I've done this with a lot of the key points in my books and with a lot of the subplots too. And you get to go through and think about how this applies to your characters later. But what I do is I envision what the outcome will look like. So I start at the end or I start at the middle.
[00:09:11] I start at what the outcome of whatever conflict, whichever conflict I choose to look at and I see how it ends. And I see who's in that conflict and who's in the picture and I go through and I map out. So I've told you that I'm kind of a pantser when it comes to writing, I don't really like to use an outline and that is true to an extent I outline a lot.
[00:09:44] I just don't write it all down and I don't write down every last detail of the scenes that play through my mind. I like a lot of the details of the scene and the interactions of the people in the scene to unfold as I write them. But there definitely has to be a direction and there has to be, you know, an ending, there has to be a way to get there and there still has to be a goal.
[00:10:12] And so in that respect, I definitely outline, and I recommend outlining. Otherwise you won't know what to do and you will have writer's block like you won't believe. So anyway, If you start at the end and you see who's all there and you see how it happened and you see all those different things, then you take the people who are there and you trace backwards.
[00:10:41] How did they end up there? What other big thing in the entire story? So an event that affects all of the subplots or most of them had to happen so that after that they would have this big finish at the end.
[00:10:57]And you call that event like Event D. From Event D you see, who is there and you imagine which other big event in the story would have brought everybody to that point, and you label this other event Event C and you move on back to B and then back to A. This is one way of an infinite number of ways to come up with a good plot. And it's a way to make sure that there is continuity and that there are ways that your subplots tie together. I appreciate all of the subplots. I do not have the brain power or the attention span to pay attention to subplots that happen in the first book and then are dropped until book five and then picked up again.
[00:12:00] I don't pay attention to all of those things. And so I like to have a good book where all of the subplots tie together in some way in the span of one book, and this is a way to ensure that. It's a way to keep all of the subplots there. It's also a good way to keep them tangled and it is so fun and so freaking hard, but so fun to have all of these subplots and to have many people involved in all of the subplots. It makes the book ridiculous to write, but it makes it intriguing to read and it adds so much suspense and it adds so much pull and so much grip. It really grips me when everybody is in everybody else's business. And then a big thing happens and there's a reason why everyone was there.
[00:12:58] And then the subplots, and the main plot kind of separate for another few chapters. And then they meet together again. And then at the end, for a big finish. I love that. Now, when you're doing it and we'll get to this in subsequent episodes, you need to make sure that your characters are doing it right.
[00:13:19] And you need to make sure that the pacing is correct among other things. But we're going to touch on those things in some of the next episodes of Writing in the Tiny House.
[00:13:30] So that is it for today. Thank you so much for joining me today. If you wish to become a patron and get early access to the episodes or a bonus episode every month, or be involved in our community and spend time with me every month.
[00:13:46]Then be sure to go to patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse. Also follow me on Instagram. My handle is @authordevindavis and on Twitter. And my handle is @authordevind. Take just a minute and leave a review on whatever app you are listening to this podcast through
[00:14:13] a special thanks to my patrons. Without you, this podcast. Would not be as fun or as possible. So thank you so much, guys. Be sure to join in next week and have fun writing.
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