Properly Mapping Out Your Story

Properly Mapping Out Your Story

Whatever you are planning to write, whether it’s a memoir, a mystery novel, or a romantic literary piece, your draft and other paperwork associated with your narrative can pile up so fast if you do not organize your tasks by planning ahead. If you know how to plan a story, you can spare yourself from the misery of missing out on ideas that could have made your novel a bestseller. Here are a few tips on how you can put a little organization in your writing tasks.

• Research

In reality, you can maximize your research time by making plans in advance and getting started on your research prior to starting a new project. You can start with your research by going to stores that sell pre-owned books such as libraries and flea markets. You may also want to visit online bookstores and join boom clubs. You may meet people who have already successfully published a book or two and these guys can give you invaluable inputs on how you can do the same.

You should also begin listing down contacts, professionals and experts in fields that you may need for your story. They include layers, cops, doctors, et cetera. These people can provide you with insights and information that only they can provide.

• Construct Main Characters

If you can come up with characters who will be able to live up to the intense portions of your plot, you will most likely do very few rewriting and revisions later on. You goal should be to make characters (protagonist, extras, and antihero) and transform them into actual people (figuratively speaking), individuals with unique identities  and personalities, people your target readers will care for and even fall in love with.

Plots

Your plot is somehow dependent on the characters that you create and vice versa. A good story requires great characters and these characters produce and elicit various plots. You definitely have to set up an outline first, a draft that lays out and describes different progressive conflicts in a story. Afterwards, you can create resolutions for these specific conflicts and here is where the struggles of your main character come into play. You can intelligently play on your protagonist’s strengths and weaknesses, and if you do this tactically, you would be able to entice your reader to know more, read more, and buy your book.

Developing a framework for your story

There are folks who are so gifted, they can write a story and complete it based only on the information off the top of their heads. For those who do not possess this gift, doing this may result in a tangled plot that confuses even the writer. To be on the safe side, make sure that you know the beginning, middle, and end of your story by creating a solid framework for it. It makes the writing process more fluid and easy.

Revise and Polish

After everything has been written, what you need to do is go back to the first page and look for errors. Even the best writers in the world make grammatical mistakes. Evaluate your word choice and look for better alternatives. It would be smart to keep a thesaurus beside you.